CobraSport sports cat emissions fail
 

Soback in May 2011 I purchased quite a few upgrade bits for my 06 Hawkeye WRXincluding a vf48 turbo, CobraSport 200 cel sports cat downpipe (3” mouth to 2.5”end), 2.5” resonated centre section, STI intercooler, under tray etc etc. (Thenormal list of WRX upgrade bits). I purchased the 200cel sports cat to give theengine the best chance of making power but with no compromise at MOT time. I'dheard 100 cel cats more often than not had issues with emissions fails at MOTtime so was happy to go 200 cel and compromise on performance.


I had Richard@ FB Tuning fit the bits I was unable to fit myself in the time I had in June2011 including the turbo & exhaust system. We had an issue straight out ofthe box with the CobraSport exhaust parts. Although they looked nice and shinyand looked to be well made they didn't fit 100% perfectly on the car. Thedownpipe required a very slight pie cut at the end where it joined the midpipe to get everything lines up to seal right as it was bent at the wrongangle. Rich (as always) did a great job on the tig welded mod and we goteverything fitted for Duncan (Race Dynamix) to map a few days later. Theresults were 334/381 and I have been happy ever since as the car has beenfaultless.


At MOT timethe first year things looked good and the car flew through. However…. year 2 itstruggled and they had to take the car for a long drive to warm it up to passemissions. Year 3 and it ONLY just passed after a really good thrashing. Thisyear, no matter how hard my friendly Subaru garage try they can not get theemissions low enough to pass. They are now telling me the cat has failedalready. Great!!!


The carshould show emissions levels below 0.2% CO to pass the test. This year minewasn’t going any lower than 0.59% and even after a massive drive and warm up itwent only as low as 0.52%. My Subaru garage are doing the normal things andchecking the Lambda sensor but are confident that the CAT has failed as thereadings were jumping about all over the place on the monitor. They said theyhave seen this before and always turns out to be the CAT at fault.


My car isalways maintained regardless of cost by the local Subaru dealer who I know verywell and Rich at FB Tuning. It is very well serviced and never causes meproblems until this week.


I rangCobraSport to have a chat. After waiting 4 hours for a call-back that neverhappened I rang them again and have now been told that although their websiteclearly states all their exhausts have a lifetime warranty, the CATS only comewith 3 years guarantee. I have been through all of the paperwork supplied bythem when I purchased 4 years ago and it does not state this anywhere.


I’m leftfeeling very pi55ed off indeed and unsupported. Their only offer was to give mefree delivery on a new £440 replacement. However, if I have to buy a newdownpipe and have it changed every 4 years this will become very costly indeed.


I’m now leftwith my car sat at the local Subaru dealers waiting for me to purchase a newdownpipe for them to fit.


Sorry for thelong rant! Grr.


I’ve lookedat Hayward & scott and I think they do asimilar 3” to 2.5” cat downpipe but it is only 100 cel which I don’t want. It’salso far more expensive that the Cobra version. I can’t seem to find a MiltecCat downpipe.


Anysuggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated.


Thanks
Andy

I'd buy a second hand cat for mot purposes and decat and map tweak

I still have the original downpipe and Subaru suggested fitting it for the MOT and then putting the sports cat back on afterwards. Apart from costing a fortune to change over every year and the hassle of doing this I really didn't want to go down this route in the first place. Hence I bought the MOT friendly sports cat in the first place. My car is an every day car and with 2 young kids I don't have the luxury of time to do this every year for the MOT.

Sadly you're stuck with the expensive new cat option then.
Unless you get some joy from cobra which I doubt.

Unfortunately I think you're right mate. Am shafted!


Was wondering if anyone else had suffered from sports cat failure like this in such a short time. My car has done 28k total on that cat.

I ran cat less for years so can't help you there although I did have a full cobra system.
I guess you could try and argue the point after purchase to get some money back

I'll be calling them again tomorrow to talk to someone a little more senior to discuss this further. Am not happy.

I have to admit I thought the cats were exempt from the lifetime warranty.
Good luck anyway

That being the case if so, I'd still expect them to last longer than 4 years bearing in mind it's been getting worse year on year.

I'd agree again but in their eyes it's well outside warranty.
No harm in a call though.
A polite call sometimes works wonders,unlike faceless emails

Well this has put me off buying Cobra in the future and many more i expect.

Im pretty sure cats are exempt by most exhaust companies.
Stainless exhaust won't rot away really so claims are unlikely and even then it only covers original purchaser usually.
Cats degrade over time hence the limited warranty.

I'm always polite! :) Only way to go to be honest.


Took me quite some time to get through to the right person to talk to when I originally had the issues of fitment. Will just have to see where I get with it. I suspect nowhere as you say. They will just stand by their warranty period that wasn't previously known until now.

Not normally within 3-4 years though unless their is a fault somewhere.


My engine isn't pushing the cat either. Should handle that with no issues.

At the point where you're at now, would it be worth throwing a bottle of Cataclean in the tank, and seeing how much that brings the emissions down?

To be honest i didnt realise cats were exempt,you learn something everyday.:thumb:

It's not that the cat is dirty, it's that it has degraded and broken up by the sounds of it if the readings are all over the place. Not sure if it would help or not and now my car is in pieces at the Subaru dealership I can't really give that a go either. Poo.

This is the link.


Clearly says lifetime warranty. Nowhere does it say only 3 years for the cat.


http://www.cobrasport.com/index.php/...-200-cell.html


However looking through their terms and conditions in the very small print it says 2 years on cats.


http://www.cobrasport.com/index.php/...austs-tac.html


Very annoying as this was never highlighted when I purchased the items and was never sent to me on any of the documents that came with the goods.


grr

Have you tried cat cleaner? Could it just be full of rubbish. Every year I need to give mine a good thrashing to pass. This year I will try car cleaner.

Get a Prodrive sports cat.

No idea how old mine is, been on my car 2.5 years and passed its MOT last week, has to be hot obviously.

Not tried cat cleaner. Garage are quite sure cat is faulty rather than dirty. Also, my car is an every day car and it does get driven hard and warmed up. In fact only a couple of weeks ago I took it for a 5 hour drive. I'd have hoped all of this would have kept the cat reasonably tidy.

The garage warmed it up on a long drive before they tried a few times and still no luck.

Very annoying.

How do you use cat cleaner then?

Pour one bottle into 1/4 full tank. Drive around for 15mins. That's it.

Worked on my old M3 that failed on emissions. Haven't tried it in a Scoob but have an MoT on Friday so may give it a go then.

Yea just pop in fuel tank. I'm going to give it ago next mot. As mine had to be taken on long drive to pass

****ing hell I've got a cobra with sports cat fitted in the summer, hope it lasts longer than that.

You will be fine nothing to worry about (just keep the mileage down) :lol1:

Only do less than 4K a year at most

man up and decat it you wuss,,,,,,,, lol

I looked at a Cobra cat for mine, but my local Scooby specialist put me off one and said go with the Prodrive or Miltek. I went for a secondhand Prodrive and touch wood, it's been great. Passed three MOTs so far and I've done 25k miles with it on.
Good luck

just in the off chance, have you had the codes checked? Sometimes the secondary air system can fail - although it's only supposed to be used on cold start if one of the pipes has perished your emissions readings will be a little stuffed up due to the extra air flopping about (the ECU can read it at the rear o2 and try to compensate). Depends if the rear o2 was disabled and the rear o2 corrections reduced to zero as well.

for what it's worth there's a prodrive sports cat on my hawk and it's been fine for years, however our emissions test is a little more relaxed in NI to say the least!

The cat is probably in a straight section of pipe, so it should be possible to (fairly) easily replace the cat with a universal 200cps sports cat (available online). I.e. you could chop out the failed cat and fit a new one in its place.

However, the above is a bit of a faff, and of course if you're paying someone for labour it's going to cost more than just the universal cat.

If it was me, I'd be annoyed too.