MR2 Roadster Owners Club

The Workshop => Maintenance, Problems & Troubleshooting => Topic started by: 1000 PR on April 8, 2008, 22:56

Title: Highest mileage Mk3 with pre-cats in?
Post by: 1000 PR on April 8, 2008, 22:56
Couldn't find a previous thread for this but my 2000 car has done 87k and still has the pre-cats in. It's using a bit of oil but nothing serious but if the pre-cats are supposed to disintegrate between 30-40k I guess it's a bit late now!
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Post by: kanujunkie on April 9, 2008, 06:33
its only a small percentage that have issues, not every one that was built
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Post by: enid_b on April 9, 2008, 13:40
no harm in taking them out anyhow? you get a little performance and note improvement?

but like stu says, not all are faulty, the feelings on this site are that they are a ticking time bomb.

obviously its your choice, but i would suggest removing them for some free piece of mind

E
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Post by: spit on April 9, 2008, 13:49
+1, if for no other reason than you are now starting to use a bit of oil. Eventually, oil contamination of the precats will make them redundant for their purpose (such as it is) and could accelerate their wear.
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Post by: aluk49 on April 9, 2008, 15:19
Is there a known number of cars on this forum that have had the precat problem? I would be interested to know how many cars have been affected rather than "a small percentage"
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Post by: spit on April 9, 2008, 15:40
I don't believe anyone has seen the need to keep a count.

And forgive me, but it'd be a little artificial to furnish you with a number, so don't let this "quantifiable" line of thinking sway you one way or the other over what you decide to do. That's entirely your choice and giving you a number would not be giving you a fact.

In addition, we've had cases where the precat surfaces have shown signs of degradation when they were looked at prior to being smashed out  s:lol: :lol: s:lol:  

We can't put a figure on the incidence of that either 'cos we simply don't know. For example, my own PCats were showing surface degradation at 65k but I didn't bother to post up about it at the time.

Precats are a bit like fire alarms: you only find out if they're no good after its too late.  s:wink: :wink: s:wink:
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Post by: enid_b on April 9, 2008, 15:42
aluk, the club is a percentage of owners, and within the club, there is a percentage that have had trouble.

toyota are privately admitting/aware of this problem, but will never tell how many.  

so u wont get an answer as such. fact is that there is a problem, so its in all our interests to do what we can as owners to reduce risk and costs of ownership.

E
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Post by: Anonymous on April 9, 2008, 15:54
Don't forget that this problem - oval bores - bad rings  s:shock: :shock: s:shock:  applies to other cars within the Toyota range that use the same engine. So now your list starts to become a little bigger - hence the 7 year warranty now give by Toyota.

The MR2 problem is made worse by the pre-cats - it makes things fail a lotttttttttttttttttttttttttt quicker.

And yes there as been a failure of an MR2 that was not fitted with pre-cats from new - Rogues very own VM180   s:oops: :oops: s:oops:   - used oil, it ran dry and the bottom end failed.

Hope this helps
Rob
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Post by: aluk49 on April 9, 2008, 16:07
Thanks Guys, being a new owner, i'm just getting my head round this problem.  Took out my sensors last weekend, and the precats looked fine (from the top)  I'll will do them as soon as I can, but I think I might buy a che and do it that way. As for now, am still getting many smiles per gallon.
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Post by: kanujunkie on April 9, 2008, 17:48
just remember a forum like this will bring the negative elements to light and remind you of them constantly
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Post by: mrnik on April 17, 2008, 15:38
my engine was killed at around 35k miles... got a new one under warranty and the precats failed (one of the completely destroyed) killing my main cat.

That happened about just maybe 7k miles after the new engine was installed..

I was VERY lucky because I think it could have damaged the new engine as well.... Now they are gone for good!!!!  s:lol: :lol: s:lol:    s:lol: :lol: s:lol:    s:lol: :lol: s:lol:    s:lol: :lol: s:lol:    s:lol: :lol: s:lol: