I suspect there is probably something like a two year warranty on construction - case, welds etc. and no warranty or guarantee on the C.C. meeting federal emissions requirements or meeting and maintaining those Fed. requirements, especially if they're only selling it to you and not installing it. O.E.M. must be good for 8 years or 80,000 miles. So... if you're making "sports cats." you can get away with more. The things that cost $$$ are the precious metals inside. What you can do is make a "sports cat." with less restriction (less surface area and correspondingly less precious metal covering those areas). With the reduced restriction/surface area you get a cat. that provides a better sound, probably a very small increase in horsepower and you're not obligated to provide a warranty for 8 years or 80,000 miles, unlike O.E.M. With the decreased use of precious metals you can increase profit margin or sell at a lower price. With the smaller surface area, deterioration or contamination are going to happen more quickly but it's not necessarily a worry if you're not providing a "real" warranty with respect to emissions. That means the car owner could get a cat. low efficiency code earlier in the life of the cat. or even right from the start. And of course if you throw in the "For Offload Use Only" caveat you're really good-to-go. Don't get me wrong... I'm not a fan of cats., especially on what are typically low-use vehicles.
