Your opinion on missing CAT issue ('79 308)

Wayne -- (Sorry to hear about your problem, but) If you're going to hassle with trying to get some $ back from the seller, I'd at least use the price from FerrariUK for a new cat to determine the $ amount under discussion (if you're not going to go for the absurd F dealer price) rather than a discount aftermarket converter price.

Just for reference, the stock '78-'79 308 cats and exhaust system are shown below -- good luck (I'd probably just let it go, and put it in the "experience" pile )

 

you bought a 25 year old car. deal with it. if " as is " was anywhere in the sales agreement good luck with any recourse. i dont condone mis representation so i understand your frustration. i love your car by the way. seems like it would be exempt?????? by now. i havent lived in or been to cali. in a long time. best wishes on a nice car though!!!!

 

The responsibility of the seller is to give you a smog certificate, which he did. In order to have a chance of getting him for the $, you would have to PROVE that he personally knew of the removal of the cat, and misrepresented it that way.

Who knows, he may have been a victim of his previous owner, or a mechanic, or a bad shop. There are certainly plenty of those around. Why assume it is the PO?

 

Wayne,

I would go to a local smog shop and get a pre-test done to make sure your car will pass. When I bought my '79 I got a smog certificate from the seller in Santa Cruz County. The test is just an Idle test. Two years later when I went to get my car tested in LA County, the car was not close to passing. Here they use the dyno test. It cost me 4 new cam shafts and a lot of new parts to get it to pass. Every 2 years I spend several weekends getting the car is shape to pass the smog test. In California it is 30 yrs before it is exempt and you can still be sighted for no cats after 30 yrs if they spot the problem

craig

 

Wayne, I don't know where you live. I had a bad rotor and burned at least one of my cats on my '83 308. After it would not pass emissions, so I took both cats off and put bypass pipe ( readily available ) on instead, I live in Illinios and can get a show car exemption from smog testing. You may want to check with your state agency.

Oh, there is a $50,000 fine in Illinios if a dealer or mechanic removes the cats.

 

Go back to the seller? I don't think so.

As above, 25 year old car, you got your smog certificate. Count yourself lucky if that is the only problem you end up finding. That's why these are $27,000 used cars.

I don't think there was anything illegal about him selling you the car. He's just a private seller selling you a 25 year old used car. His obligation was to give you a smog certificate, which he did. I don't think under Cal. law he is a guarantor of anything on the car, smog system or otherwise.

What if you turned around and sold the car to someone else in December? Would you be a guarantor of the smog system?

Did you get a PPI done on it? If they ran it on their gas analyzer, they probably would have picked up something wrong with the emissions system (who knows how the seller got the smog certificate, the car may be way out of compliance, but there are still ways to get certs.)

 

You're trying to call a fradulant sale for a $300 part? As everyone else has pointed out, it's a quarter-century old used car with who knows how many previous owners and mechanics messing with it. Just bite the bullet and fix the thing.

 

Too bad, I sold the two working, excellent condition cats from my ex 78 308 GTS for about $400 on Ebay last summer....

 

30 years to be exempt!!!! sheesh! i had no idea Wayne, keep us posted on the outcome, i wonder if the shop that certified the car would have records of the tests, or if there are emissions records from the PPI you had done. strange that only 1 cat was replaced and the other was hollowed out! seems to me the back pressure difference between the 2 banks would make it run " funny" . good luck.

 

Hi Wayne,
If I had bought this car from a dealer, I sure as hell would be back there making him pay for the new cat. If the dealer said there were two working cats in there, it's their problem if they didn't verify it before telling you. If you're dealing with a private seller, you might have to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he didn't know one was missing. I mean, how many people take the exhaust off the car if there's nothing wrong with it (I mean except for you dudes that need it louder of course! ;-)

The thing I would be worried about is that it might've been tweaked to pass smog and that it doesn't really pass as properly tuned to drive. That just means that every time you get it smogged, you will have to lean out the mixtures and diddle with it to make it pass. What a pain. If it's private seller I would probably just buy the aftermarket cat, put it in, and then rip both of them out in 2009!!

Birdman

 

Did you have a PPI done on the car?

 

I would contact the former owner and ask him or her about the situation.
The paperwork shows new cats...
so someone along the line has misrepresented this.

As far as a PPI, I have performed a number of these,
but opening up the exhaust to check to see if someone has hollowed out a cat is not on my list of things to check.
I inspect that area when I do the visual, and again when checking for exhaust leaks, as well as check for indicator lights during the test drive.

 

Twenty five years to be exempt in Texas.

Send it over, Wayne and we'll take care of it a few years for ya.....

That's the most valuable part of my whole car, the DOT "cat exempt" sticker!

This guy wanted to paint over it, I said "What a' ya, NUTS!!!!!??"

As stated above, you're gonna have to get legal.

 

At any rate, make the car symmetrical, either have both cats operational or get rid of them both. i would not drive the car too far with a functional cat on one bank, and an open cat on the other...
THEN, do a comparison emissions check on both banks to home in on the problem as to why the 2nd try on the e-test...

 

This is an interesting dilemma since I had almost the exact same problem a year or so ago when I bought my '78. It came with a receipt that showed the purchase of 'new' cats approximately 1200 miles ago on the odometer. As part of the spectacular price I got on the car I agreed to take care of getting it smogged here in Cali. When I took it in, it failed miserably and come to find out, both 'new' cats had been burned through. When I took it to my long-time F-Car mech he reminded me that this is a common problem with 308's. He picked up a couple of aftermarket cats for me and after about $700.00 total we had my smog cert in hand. I have since pulled the cats off for safe keeping and will put them back on and re-tune in a year or so. In all of mine and my father's years of owning F-Cars in Cali, I have never heard of anyone being 'inspected' outside of when you actually get your car tested, thus I'm not really worried about it.