by Pat Goss
Do you read your owner’s manual? More importantly, do you follow what it tells you to do? Especially when it comes to the yellow check engine light. It tells you if that yellow light is flashing that you’re suppose to turn the engine off as soon as you safely can. Because if you don’t you, well you can damage this part right here. This is a typical catalytic convertor. Cars today have multiple convertors on them. And they’re often built into an assembly such as we see here. That assembly can be expensive. None of them are really cheap, but no matter what it costs, there’s no reason on earth to damage something when turning the key off will prevent it. You see what happens here is real simple. When that light is flashing that cylinder in your car is not firing properly. And that means on some cars that you could have liquid gasoline accumulating in the catalytic convertors underneath the car. That causes them to overheat and when they do, they can be damaged. Now one of the more common causes of this is right here. This is a coil on plug assembly. This is the spark plug; this is the ignition coil that produces the high voltage spark for the plug. These are referred to as C.O.P. C-O-P assemply. And as the car ages, these coils get weak and when they fail you have a flashing check engine light.
Alright now inside the catalytic convertor we have medium material it’s made of a ceramic material such as we see here. We can see the light right through this. That means it can flow exhaust gas through it very easily. But when it gets flooded with fuel, it over heats and this ceramic turns into what looks like a chunk of coal. Such as we see here. It melts; it blocks the flow of exhaust gas. It ceases to treat emissions and you have a problem. So check engine light starts flashing shut the car off as soon as you possibly can. And if you need a new catalytic convertor make sure you figure out why the old one failed before you put a new one on. Did the old one just wear out or is there some problem that caused it to overheat and melt down such as we’ve seen here? If it is an external cause, if you put a new one on and it melts down the same as the old one did the manufacturer’s warranty will not cover you and you’re going to be out some money. So check first. And if you have a question or comment drop me a line right here at MotorWeek.