charm

The cats are Bosals. As an environmental scientist and a former southern Californian, I have seen the impacts that smog equipment has had. I recall, as a kid in the early 80's how much the air would sting my eyes. That's gone away. Why? Largely smog equipment. The Subaru motors, as I understand it, do run pretty clean, but the cats are still doing something. The concern is that there is more pollutant entering the catalyst then the catalyst can handle. The reprogramming or, in the case of my car, the anti-foulers are telling the computer that the catalyst is doing its job...it's not. What I want to know is why are the cats not handling the pollutant levels. For this thread, this question is rhetorical since it's been talked to death on this forum. For now, I'm not going to change a thing. I'm not worried about the reliability of my car. But I do want things to operate as they're intended. If I'm using antifoulers, reprogramming the ECU, using hotter plugs, etc. then things are not operating as designed.

hmmm? A cheap easy experiment. I like it! Burn more stuff, leave less for the cats. What's the down side to a hotter plug? I know the anti-foulers make the car think that everything is working properly, but it's not. I would prefer to fix the problem as opposed to working around it.

I've been wrestling with a P0420 code on my 2000 OBW with 170k mi on it for over a year now. I'm 2 sets of cats, 2 front O2 sensors and 1 rear O2 sensor into this. Both sets of cats have been aftermarket...I should have bought them from Subaru. And I do have the anti-foulers installed so at least my CEL is off, usually. But, my question is about the cats themselves. Presumably I'm I'm not burning off enough 'stuff' coming out of the engine. If I could make the cats hotter, would I, in theory, burn off more crud? My thought is this, if I take high temp exhaust insulating wrap and wrap it around the cats and the pipe between them, won't I burn off more crud thus improving the effeciency of my catalyst? Knowing the engine has been apart in the 40k miles to do the headgaskets and every other engine seal, the engine was clean. Where is all of this crud coming from that's throwing the code? PCV? Other sensor making me run too rich but not so out of whack as to throw a code?

First of all, the more I thought about it, the more I thought that starting a new thread rather than adding on to my previous one was the right way to go, I may be wrong. Next, I'm not exactly sure how to do a search for all of the symptoms and all of the attempts I've made, so I'll list them below. 2000 OBW, 2.5L auto tranny. 170k miles I've been dealing with this since I bought the car at 130k miles. It had bad headgaskets but was otherwise well cared for. I replaced the headgaskets and then the cats with aftermarket ones as well as a new Subaru front O2 sensor. Because of another problem, I have no idea how long the CEL was off with these cats. Several thousand miles later I figured out that the 420 code was back on and refused to allow my car to be touched by the previous guy who did my cats despite the cost. I then replaced the rear O2 sensor, the front O2 sensor (both Subaru) as well as the cats, this time with Bosal. At this time I also replaced the plugs and plug wires with OEM. A few weeks after all that, and a few hours after passing my emissions test, the CEL returned. I then used the antifouler trick and the CEL remaind off for a little over 2 months. Until last night. CEL came back on. I thought I felt a little bit of a roughness when gently pressing the accelerator from a stop. I have also noticed a 1 to 2 mpg decrease in my mileage. What's next in the line to check that I can check without a high dollar scan tool? What more info can I provide to help those with much more knowledge than I have to make a best guess on the next step in this process?

2 months. I got 2 months of CEL free driving and then the P0420 returned. I'm at a loss here. What the heck am I missing? I've replaced everything in the exhaust chain, I've tried the work arounds, there aren't any exhaust leaks. Is there something on the front side causing something foul, like the cats? What would cause that? I've replaced plugs and plug wires. What do I try next? I'm wary of replacing the cats again. Although next time I do, I'll spend the big bucks and get them from Subaru. If I had done that in the first place, it may have cost me less.

I heard Bosal was a good option too. Tired it. I suggest saving yourself a lot of time and money and just buying the Subaru part. It's an extra, what $400? Sounds like a lot but when you consider my case where I've put on 2 sets of aftermarket cats at a cost of around $1200, if I had put on the OE cats the first time, I would have saved $100 on cats, and an awful lot of time and energy. Actually, this is all an assumption. Having not tried the OE cats, they might fail for me too. I'm running the antifouler right now and I really like not having the CEL on. It's been off for several months now.

Do you have a sunroof? They are designed to leak...and then drain. If you do, keeping the moisture out is going to be tough especially if you're not getting the car warm enough to evaporate it all. Hence, yeah, the dehumidifier chemical thingys.

2000 obw. auto tranny.

Both of mine are Subaru and they are NOT the same. They look different and cost different (the rear is much pricier). The whole thing looks different, as I recall.

The brand is "HELP!" and the part number is 42009. Worked well on my car. Still wish I could figure out why my car is throwing the code and fix it rather than working around it with this trick.

I'm not sure measuring mileage in terms of miles per tank tells a good story. Miles per gallon is the story needed. MPG is a more reliable number because it removes the variability of how many gallons of gas you used per tank. Although you've been consistent in the past, your drop in miles per tank could be due to some other random factor having to do with when you filled the tank or, I don't know, but something other than just the mileage. As anal retentive as this makes me look, I actually built a spreadsheet that calculates this for me. I enter my mileage, the number of gallons purchased, and the cost (so I can see how much I'm spending on gas) and the spreadsheet not only tells me my MPG, but, it also graphs it so I can see the trend. My mileage is incredibly spikey even though I fill up right around 300 miles per tank. My MPG has ranged from, off the top of my head, 20 MPG to 29 MPG...all from ~300 miles per tank. Your mileage may not have dropped off as severely as you think it did.

Keep in mind that any engine can blow a headgasket. I've owned 2 subies, the first with an EJ22 and the second a phase II EJ25. Never had problems with the former and bought the later with a known HG problem. The problem was an INTERNAL leaking HG. According to this board, phase IIs don't do that...mine did. I replaced the HGs and the car has been champ for the last 45k miles. I got a great deal on the car because of the HGs and, before I bought it, my mechanic gave a likely clean bill of health. So, I got a good deal, a totally resealed engine, and I now have a car I like. Now, if I could just figure out how to correctly and permenantly fix my catalytic converter issues the car would be perfect.

No worries on the emissions test. WA state does them every other year and mine was last done this past August. By August of 2011 they should be masked pretty well. I strongly recommend trying to resolve this issue the right way first. While I am excited that it turned off the CEL for me, I am glad, albeit poorer, that I attempted to diagnose and replace parts that weren't working correctly. I am all for modding cars but this is a last resort kind of modification in my opinion.

Driving slower usually helps me maintain control in those situations. If 1 wheel lets go, there's only so much that the AWD systems can compensate for. From there it's all about driving at a speed where the wheel isn't wrenched out of the driver's hands.

Too late for this now that the car is in the shop but, when my HG went (I bought the car this way) I could smell exhaust gases in the coolant reservoir. It was really obvious. This may not be typical, but worked on my phase II.

Tried it with one first, mostly because I didn't have a 22mm wrench and my O2 sensor socket thingy wasn't gonna work without hacking the heat shield if I used two. One did not do the trick. So, a couple cuts with the tin snips to open up the holes for the wire to rear O2 sensor and the O2 removal tool slipped right on. I did gob a good bit of high temp thread sealant on all of the threads to make certain I didn't have any air leaks. It's still off. I'll post something if the code comes back. The car should pass emissions just fine if things stay as they are and the testing place doesn't look under the car at the rear O2 sensor.

Two days after installing the anti-foulers under the rear O2 sensor of 2000 OBW with 165k miles on it, I still don't have a CEL! I've owned the car for almost 2 years and this is the second longest period of time I've had no CEL (the longest one was right after my second catalytic converter replacement and that lasted about 2 weeks). Car's running smoothly just as it always has. Gas mileage appears to be what it was before. So far it seems that nothing has changed except for the yellow light on my dash isn't on. The only bad thing is that the upper right hand corner of the my gauge cluster looks empty without the CEL on. I'll just have to learn to live without it. Glad to have found this trick. Personally, I think I did the right thing trying to fix it correctly before going this route, but after dropping around $2k on catalytic converters, O2 sensors, and various visits to the mechanic, it was time to just be done with it.

While I don't need to pass smog again until August of 2012, I really like the look of my dash without the light on and, I'd like to know if some other code is being thrown. That said, the car runs fine, this is more an annoyance. Btw, the last set of cats had the CEL off for about a week. The car passed smog and that night the CEL came back on. As you said, I added the second anti-fouler, not drilled, last night. I'll run to the autoparts store to reset the code a little later this morning and see how long it stays off this time. If it comes back on again, I'm giving up until June of 2012.

Well, the CEL came back on with just 1 anti-fouler in place. Just added the second. I'll reset the code in the morning and see what happens.

To get fluid into the tube between the Nalgene bottle and the cylinder, just suck. Sure, a vacuum pump would be easier, but I think you could create enough of a vacuum using your lips to bring fluid into the bottle.

The Nalgene bottle is there to hold extra fluid to keep the reservoir full thus ensuring no air bubbles. This presents a problem...how to prime the tube? Or, I suppose that's how you would know you've gotten to the fluid from the Nalgene by the long air bubble. hmmm I'll have to test and see how much pressure a Nalgene bottle can take. 20 psi doesn't sound like much for a rugged bottle like that. But, it's used to impact from the outside, not pressure from within so I really don't know.

There have been threads of this sort in the past and they're all over the internet. What I can't find and was wondering if it would work is a setup that used, say, a Nalgene bottle and an air compressor. My idea is this: Install 2 fittings into the lid of an old Nalgene bottle. One fitting would be barbed and would have a length of tubing on the inside of the bottle leading to the bottom of the bottle. The other fitting would be to connect the bottle to a portable air compressor. Set the compressor to 20 PSI. From the barb fitting on the Nalgene bottle, run a length of tubing, say 1/4 inch, to a modified bone yard collected master cylinder cap with a barb fitting on it. From here it's the same as the rest of the DIY bleeder kits. Really, I'm just taking the garden sprayer and replacing it with a 1 liter Nalgene bottle. I suppose putting a pressure relief valve somewhere in the system would be wise too. Thoughts? Would this work? Would it work better than the garden sprayer version? Worse?

I should take a picture, but I'm lazy and probably won't. The bulb is part of this rubber sleeve. I should call the dealership and see how much they want for the bulb, if they sell just the bulb. The rubber housing itself separates from the rest of the switch so easily, it feels like it should be replaceable...but who knows?

Heated mirror switch lightbulb too. 2000 OBW 165k miles and a couple of burned out interior bulbs. I looked through the sticky above and it wasn't even close to answering my question about this. This is not life or death, just a nicety, but I would love it if all of the bulbs on the inside of my car worked. I took apart the seat heater switch for the passenger side, the side with the dead bulb, and the way the bulbs mount, in a little rubber housing, makes them look hard to replace. Knowing that my local pull a part doesn't normally have vehicles as 'new' as mine, which models and years might I find the same switch in? I have not taken apart the heated mirror switch yet, is that one easier to replace with a Radio Shack bulb? If it is, or not, are there are years and models that I could pilfer the switch from in the bone yard? I figure it's probably easier to get it from the junk yard than to actually spend the time and the same money switching out the bulb even knowing that the bulb may be out on the one I buy. Thanks, and Happy New Year. For New Year's day this year I'll be 'fixing' my P00420 code for once and for all and hopefully, finally, tightening the endlink bolts for the last time. I can't get them secure enough, no matter how tight, no matter what threadlock, to stay put for more than a few thousand miles. Again, it's a nuisnace, not life and death.

I'm with you! I'll use my buddy's drill press in the coming days to drill out an anti-fouler and be done with this. Just for fun, I also bought a vacuum gauge. Pretty steady at 21 psi, so I don't think I have a vacuum related issue. Looking forward to not having my CEL on soon.