Took car to a dealership in Widnes with standard exhaust in boot (heard they were sympathetic when it came to decats), had told them it was fully-decatted, got told they had got full-decats through so was hopefull, guess what, it failed.

They said they'd have to put a cat back on (I surmised it was the centre but didn't ask, my fault), one hour £62 to do!
So finally got a call Saturday morning, passed!
How much £180 inc MoT charge!!! They had replaced the downpipe cat and it had taken them two hours!!
Won't be getting caught like that again.

How easy is it to change the downpipe, anyone done this themselves? Looks reasonably straight forwardish?
Also, for the time being as the cars been remapped with full decat, is having the catted downpipe in going to cause any problems?
cheers

 

Not too difficult to do, as long as the nuts aren't seized. As it's been recently changed, they shouldn't be. Brother and I changed the full exhaust system (downpipe and back) on my car in an evening and still fitted in a game of squash. 20 minutes of that was as the splitter in my downpipe needed subtle adjustments - with my angle grinder - to match up correctly with my turbo; not a problem you'll have. Both of us mechanically competent but had never worked on a scoob before.

I admit it is a bit easier with ramps and 2 people - one whips off the intercooler and goes in from the top, the other goes underneath and attacks from the bottom.

 

So TMIC has to come off, is this so you can get to the bolts where the downpipe connects to the turbo?

 

In future, why not just replace the middle cat? Even I could do that

 

That's what I would have done but from conversation I expected it to pass without the cats actually being put back on. When Subaru phoned me back to say it needed to put a cat on, I (foolishly) expected them to put the middle back on but no, they put the downpipe on for me, at a cost of £140!
So next time reckon I will go for the middle, mind you seems a fair number will still fail with just the centre cat?

 

2 MOT's passed on a warm centre here.

Downpipe doesn't take any longer than an hour and a half first time. Should be swapped in well under an hour with the aid of ramps/extra hands.