Best catalytic converter fix?

K

Kroaler

Member
Car
2012 FX35 awd
Name
Brandon
Hello,
2012 Fx35 AWD 135k miles. Catalytic converter rattle on both OEMs. Not the shields as I have removed all cat shielding and Y pipe heat shields.

When banging the cats by hand you can hear the material bounce around. Sound can be reproduced the loudest between 900-1200 RPM when engine runs.

Now that all that is out of the way - Whats my best option to correct the problem? My goal is reliability as I dont want to do this again in 30k miles. No emissions test in my state. Do cats from other infiniti / nissan models fit? (Hard to get clear answer for FX35 AWD)

Id prefer not to get engine codes if possible. My mechanic mentioned just knocking out the material that is loose and putting in an 02 anti fouler spacer.

Whats everyone's input? I bought this car for the sweet exhaust note so getting this annoying (and somewhat embarrassing...) rattle fixed is pretty high on my to-do list.
 
Guys, get under there and have a closer look at your exhaust. This might not be the case but is worth a shot. I started getting a little rattling noise from my exhaust about 6 months ago and thought it might be a heat shield. When I rolled under the vehicle I found that a 1/8" strip of metal came off of one of the pipes right at one of the pipe joints. This metal appeared to be part of the flange that had corroded off but was sitting around the pipe and stayed very near the pipe joint but rattled around especially when I was just starting the vehicle and coming out of my parkade. When under there I didn't hear anything when I tapped on the heat shield but when I tapped on the pipes the rattle could be heard. this little strip was hard to see but after pulling it out with some pliers the rattle was gone.
 
So just to update.

My local mechanic fixed it. The cheapest option I had was for him to open up the bottom, and pull out the cat material that came loose and weld it back. 75$ and it worked. I've still got about 1/2 the cat material remaining. Seems the horizontal material breaks off while the vertical one stays.

I considered replacement of pipe but it seems a design issue that would return in 30-40k miles. I also looked after market but saw issues with rattle after x miles.


With my cat cutout for "off-road" use, I know it won't come back cause it's not there

For clarification - he actually made a hole in the cat, removed the broken parts like surgery and then tig welded it back. Never even took a bolt loose and no test pipe or anything.

Also didn't need to cheat out the downstream O2 sensor as it's at the bottom of the vertical cat and the horizontal is what I removed.
 
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