Miss me much?

No knee chopping for me since I have a titanium plate and a bunch of these holding one together after one of my great ladder tricks. I had this one removed because the head was just below the skin and I kept bumping it into things=pain.

I just barfed on my cell phone.

Not a fan of medical stuff.

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Ow.

3" and SO clean

The doctor used a short + hand held screw driver to remove it and I felt every half turn. He laughed and said “I can’t numb your bones” and the nurse kept yelling at me to breath. :rofl: :rofl:

:grimacing: :flushed:

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How’d ya make out, 'Sis? :slight_smile:

The 2 hours before you go in was the rough part, pre-surgery. Post-surgery wasn’t too bad. I had a nerve block that lasted until 4 AM the next morning and even once that wore off, I was comfortable. I stayed for 23hr “observation period” since Aetna denied an overnight stay. Yeah, I know same thing.

Had it on Monday, went home Tuesday morning, and Tuesday night my catalytic converter was stolen :scream:. Had to look through a lot of Wzye files to find out when it happened.

The visiting nurse and PT came to the house Wednesday. Tortured me for an hour, repeated on Friday.

Tried to get out to Walmart Saturday, and that’s when I discovered the converter was missing. Called the police to file a report, took the car to the repair shop for a temp fix (they welded on a straight pipe), filed an insurance claim, and still got to Walmart :slightly_smiling_face:.

Most of my pain right now is when I’m up on it too long and the knee swells, Or when I try to do leg lifts, and when trying to bend. Formal PT starts in 2 weeks.

I would say that this was better than the left knee in 2015 with its 41 staples. This time no staples, dissolvable stitches and skin glue.

Even though I was in pain and the car got jacked, it wasn’t too bad of a week. I was able to safely drive by Saturday and I am able to get around with either a walker or a cane.

Would I do it again? HELL NO and since the left was already done I don’t have to ever again.

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Don’t spread that around. What the shop did is illegal. The ONLY approved repair is to replace the cat. They could be subject to a hefty fine from the EPA. Your MIL should be on because the cat is gone. Don’t let them put an aftermarket converter (Walker, etc.) on. Most insurance companies will only use OEM. Aftermarket cats cost less than OEM because they don’t have the same precious metal loading (platinum, palladium, and rhodium) and might pop a MIL down the road for cat efficiency.

I would invest in a catalytic converter cage. Chances are they know you will get the cat replaced and come back and steal it again.

I will require knee surgery in the future. Doc said I am bone on bone and my right leg is bow legged.

Hope you recover soon!

We are pivoting to catalytic converter security – love it.

When will Wyze create a frame-mount 5G cell phone camera with livestream? :blush:

Yes, for sure, in the USA putting in a straight pipe where cat was is 100% illegal – especially in California.

Plan on doing the O2 sensor(s) at the same time as the cats.

Your car will likely run bad with the straight pipe as the O2 sensor expects to see certain number ranges on the readings that it is no longer getting. It will think the car is running very cold, and as such, inject more fuel (like choking/flooding the engine with gas) as the computer tries to compensate for the low reading.

Expect to pay $80 USD each for a quality (Bosch?) O2 sensor – skip the cheap ones – and an OEM cat? Wow those are expensive…they made them to last 150,000 miles (lexus, Toyota, etc), but they change them every year, and the OEMs don’t stock a lot of older cars’ cats in their parts department, so expect to pay a premium if your car is 8+ years old. For example, LS 400 series (400, 430, 460, etc) is a great car that will run for 500,000 miles. If a cat goes bad or is stolen, expect to pay $600 each to replace them – and most of that is the cost of the parts, not labor. Pre-pandemic, when used cars weren’t so expensive, you would often have the cost of replacing the cats exceed the value of the car. People had to decide: was it worth it to do a $1,500 repair on a car worth $1,500? Most said no, and junked the cars. Then used car values skyrocketed. So now people replace them and hold on to their crappy used car way too long.

David Leveille

Had a 2007 Land Rover in for an emissions inspection. MIL couldn’t have been any brighter. Customer just bought it. Previous owner said the MIL was on due to ‘some sensor’. Both cats were shot. Strictly dealer parts. Special order from Britain, which meant overseas shipping. The estimate was well over $7000. Customer was po’ed and naturally took it out on me, saying the law was stoopid and why can’t I give him a waiver. Missouri inspection waivers required the owner spend up to $450. trying to fix the fault. They didn’t want to bankrupt the owner. But $450 wouldn’t even begin to touch the cat replacement. Spending $450 on some unrelated circuit would have been money down the drain, since the only repair that would correct a cat code is replacing the cats. The law has changed so the seller has to provide a passing emissions inspection paperwork before they can sell it.

To expound on my previous post, even a temporary straight pipe replacement, even if only for one day is illegal. If this shop does this routinely, they could be shut down.
Before I retired, cat theft was rampant especially Toyota Prius and Honda Element. We just couldn’t get them from the dealer, and we had connections. The Prius sat on our lot for 3 1/2 months. The parts manager found a dealer that had a hundred of them they bought with ESP.

I believe there is some law in California, where if the seller tries to sell a vehicle with a check engine, light on, or maybe the liars if the vehicle cannot pass smog, it’s the sellers responsibility to fix it. I’m not sure of the exact details about this, but what that meant was if you sold in a vehicle after its omissions test was due, and you didn’t include a certificate, saying it had passed smog, you could not license or title of the vehicle to the buyer. I’m really not sure of the details, but the bottom line is that some people will drive five hours to go to a smog check station that will give them a certificate that says they passed even when the vehicle has a check engine light on, or no catalytic converters at all. Someone always knows a guy who knows a guy.

I have done hundreds of emissions inspections, and repaired many, many failures. Back in the day, Missouri would issue report cards that would rate the shops and the percentage of vehicles that passed after the first repair. Our shop consistently placed at the top. I was the only L1 ASE CMAT tech at the shop so that was MY report card. Not many people wanted to patronize a shop that only had an 80% success rate. That 100% at the top of the page with our shop name next to it was great for business. Missouri stopped using report cards years ago. .

Short of yanking the PCM and writing custom code to it, there is no way for a ‘guy who knows a guy’ to get it to pass.
I have seen hacks that remove the factory OBDII connector and put an identical connector in its place, but this OBDII connector is wired to a small computer that mimics the PCM data. Everything looks good, since the data is pass-through. Codes and readiness monitors are displayed by the hacked computer. This is an expensive way to bypass the law, but ‘for every lock, there is a key’

I meant something more basic. Can you bring a car to a place, they write down your Vin, and do all that stuff, I submit it to the DMV system that it passed, and you pay 300 bucks and drive here car home having not been fixed, but the smog test has now passed.

Not suggesting anyone does this, I’m just saying that is how it can be done, and how frankly a lot of used car sellers skirt this law I believe. Easy enough to do a factory reset or at least clear the codes before a test drive.

Looks pretty squared away. Glad it went well. :slight_smile:

MIL? (check engine light) wasn’t on but it did show on a scan, they did clear it.

As much as I am going to hate it I’m going to the dealer and yes it’s getting a cage welded on afterwards.

When you get it done. Get it with a robot guided system. He used MAKO (there’s a YouTube video). I think this is why recovery is not as bad as when the left one was done, he did it manually. Stop procrastinating and just do it it’ll be so worth it. And we’ll be here for you. :grin:

@WorldwideDave Didn’t know that about the O2 sensor. Thanks. Yeah the car is 2007, so I should be emptying out my 401K for this repair.

Car has 124K miles with the original cat, I guess it lived a good life. Never thought they would bother an older car, really believed it was a newer car thing. And if I had been working, they would have missed me because I don’t get home until like 1130/1140pm, they hit me at 1116pm.

Not mad or angry wouldn’t do me any good. Now I’ll be more proactive. Started by leaving the front lights on from 8pm to 5am, the video was crappy because it was dark.

Funny thing was I wasn’t planning on buying a car but I was looking at Subaru for the last 6 months. Didn’t want the expense of a car and mortgage and bills by myself but maybe I’ll just have to look into it.

Every state that requires an emissions inspection to license a vehicle requires a form generated by a computer connected to the state.

The PCM constantly runs self tests on monitored systems. These are called readiness monitors. Take the catalytic converter monitor. If the battery cable is disconnected to clear codes, the PCM programming also sets the readiness monitors to ‘not ready’ so even though the MIL is off, and there are no codes stored, the vehicle will fail the emissions inspection because the monitors are not set. The only way to get the monitors to change to ‘ready’ is by driving the vehicle. Sometimes this takes days, even weeks in cold weather.
People used to stop a few blocks from the inspection station, yank the battery cable for a minute, reconnect it and drive to the inspection station with no MIL and no codes stored.
Having been a Missouri licensed inspector for decades, I have had customers try to slip me cash with their keys to pass their safety inspection.
IF I took the bribe, the shop and I both lose our licenses, I personally get a $10000 fine, a felony mark on my record, and not being able to be employed as a mechanic because most shops require an inspector’s license for hiring. The shop would also get fined, and I would be fired.
I reason with people why would they put their children/spouse/dog into an unsafe vehicle?
Here is a video from years ago. Ford Explorer came in for an inspection. Missouri requires both a safety and emissions inspection.

Notice the cooling fins on the brake rotor are exposed, meaning the outer braking surface of the rotor has been ground away. The outer brake pad had been ground away months ago. BUT the wheel is rotating yet the brake rotor is not. That means the rotor face has broken from the hat.

The catalytic converter code is a ‘two trip’ code. The PCM has to see the fault two times before it will pop the MIL. A trip is a cold engine start (coolant temp matches ambient temp), driving through warmup. Once the second trip was completed, the MIL would have come on.

Went out today with the goal of getting prices. First stop wanted $500 (aftermarket converter & labor). Second stop, the guy very familiar with exhaust system and races his own car. Actually jacked it up and looked. I have (had) 2 converters and 1 O2 sensors. One converter is behind the engine & the O2 sensor is at the beginning of the exhaust system. They stole converter #2, it’s before the endpipe/muffler which is only to catch any remaining emissions and reduces the noise. The O2 sensor is behind #1 so they didn’t take it with #2.

The guy was honest enough to say that how it is now is fine. And made a suggestion for next year’s inspection.

Been driving it since Saturday and it’s not throwing up any codes (no Check Engine Light). Other than it needing a good tune up it seems fine.

They didn’t even charge me for jacking it up and looking, an easy $20-25. Definitely will go back when I need something done. Honest mechanics are rarer than the metals in the converter. :rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

20 minutes outside and the knee swelled up. Now to ice and elevate. I’m done for the day.

That is good news. You don’t need any sensors. The post cat cleans up any leftovers. Not many vehicles have a cat after the downstream O2. Some vehicles like the Ford explorer have 2 cats per bank. They can’t fit one big cat so they make it 2 cats in series. The downstream O2 on this model is after the second cat.

If there is no safety inspection in your area, the MIL is off and the readiness monitors are set, you should pass the emissions inspection. There is no need to inspect the exhaust system on an emissions inspection In Missouri. That is part of the safety inspection.
I just had my car emissions inspected (Illinois) and they just plugged in and we don’t have a safety inspection.

This is my hope. I’ll find out next year.

When they did the fix, and the inspection is due in April they went and did it.

In total I spent $340 and the insurance reimbursed me for it plus another $450 to buy a cat. Will hold that in reserve just in case.

Good week, bad week or 50/50. Like I said I can’t get mad, what happened, happened.

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