OEM vs. Aftermarket Catalytic Converters

I would hope there's a difference. How long are they warrantied? Aftermarket CATs here are like 5 years for a warranty and about 1/2 the price of OEM but that's only because they use less precious metals than OEM which typically last the life of your vehicle if you take care of them via regular engine maintenance.

The OEM are have a warranty of something like 7 years/100K miles I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, which is a federal mandate.

 

The fed rated are 5 year/25k miles (mileage sounds very low to me for a 5 year rating)

California rated are 5 year/50k miles

I didn't look into CO/NY/ME but assume similar to the CA since they all mention CARB approvals.

 

The Cali one looks larger in the pics, maybe more surface area and better conversion to meet CARB standards?

 

I put a cheaper Magnaflow in my other vehicle (Volvo). It is ok. The car is maybe a bit stinkier during warmups, and the cat won't live that long, but the whole performance downpipe cost me much less than the OE downpipe. It also passed MA emission with untuned ECU (I've been told the tune relaxes failure threshold of the downstream H2OS).

Overall, I'm pleased with Magnaflow.

 

I have had the truck back for the last 3 weeks. The rental had all the modern amenities but I'll still take my 1st Gen any day. At week #6, the local Toyota dealership said that the OEM cats would be another 3 months. I couldn't wait that long so I went with some AP aftermarkets. I purchased and mounted a cat shield, but now I figure that the interested parties may not be interested once they see that I no longer have the original equipment. Doggone it.

 

We only have 1/16 counties that requires emissions testing for an inspection. And it’s the arm of California and NY lol

 

Is there some type of Cat "shield" for us 1st gen guys? I would hate to be a victim.

 

https://skidrowoffroad.com/collections/toyota-toyota-tundra-1999-2006

I ordered the TA-1002 (skid plate) and TA-1007 (guards) from Skid Row Offroad. Due to the spike in the thefts of catalytic converters, the president at Skid Row told me that they are selling these like crazy. He advised that the order would take 4 weeks and he was right on the money.

 

Did you install it?

From the pictures on their website, I could see the would be thief grab the orange piece and pull down to get access to the cats.

 

The metal is pretty thick. These theives want in and out, so if something is in the way its likely they'll move on

 

True.
If anyone has pictures other than what's on the website, I'd love to see them. My neighbor's Prius got hit a few weeks ago.

 

Last I checked OEM cats are NLA.