First wish I heard about this sooner, probably could have saved myself a bundle over the last few years. Anyway new to these forums, co-worker of mine pointed me here.

So I have a 2001 Dodge Dakota. Had it since it was 10 miles old. Paid it off back on November and that's apparently when things like to break. Just had a tune-up and an intake manifold replaced. The 3rd thing that the mechanic found was bad catalytic converters. He quoted me about 2400 or so to replace the 3 Cats, 4 O2 sensors as well as the upper exhaust pipe. All parts are dealer I imagine. Coworker that that sounded funny and suggest I look it up on here. It has a 170K miles on it so its no longer eligible for the EPA warranty that was put on them a while back.

Any assistance would be great.

 

welcome welcome welcome

lets start by telling us what engine you have. also, depending on where you live it all may be solved by few pieces of straight pipe

 

unless its a v6, get some high flow universal cats. the v6's need the back pressure.

 

then just cram a potato up there or something

 

seriously, the dual exit maganaflow isnt helping much unless i have the throttle pinned. im debating about ripping it out and just doing a single rear exit in front of my right rear tire. find a single in/out magnafw muffler on ebay. cut up the pipes i have and modify them to get what i want. a lot cheaper.

 

LOL, cats should cost around 150 bucks each. Simple fix. I dought all 3 of them are bad. I would just replace them all though as they probably are all going down hill. Also, o2 sensors cost about 75 bucks each and can be replaced in about 5 minutes not even! lol like unbolting one thread.

That is one bad quote!

 

well duh it sounds horrible when you take it out of context. i hate you guys.... lol

 

well stock cats cost like 350$ because they're "special" i guess. im assuming you have the 4.7 because my 01 3.9 only has 1 cat. you can get NGK o2 sensors for 60$ each and they're better than OEM replacements. if you have the 4.7, you only need the first two cats, the 3rd one can be gutted or ripped out and it wont trip any codes. if you have to deal with emissions testing that could be another story. all together you should be able to get 2 cats and 4 o2's for under 500$ and do it yourself or have a friend replace them.

 

you should have pre-cats just as mine. 3 cats total. pretty sure it's a standard thing.

 

mine has 1 cat just before the muffler. there are two small things, one on each side of the y-pipe though, i guess those could be the pre-cats?