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Hi, it's Mark Bossard.
I'm here with Bernie Pawlik, Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver.
Vancouver's best auto service experience.
25 times voted best in Vancouver at auto repair by their customers.
And we're talking cars.
How are you doing, Bernie?
Doing very well.
So today we have a wonderful 2008 Subaru guest.
What was going on with this Impressa?
So this vehicle came to our shop for two concerns.
One was a very loud rattle in the exhaust system.
And the second was that the vehicle had no power
when driving up hills.
So did you have any inclination what it was?
Not exactly.
Exhaust rattles and Subarus are quite common.
And they're quite common due to the heat shields rattling.
Once we drove the car, it was much more distinct
rattle than a heat shield, much louder.
And there's some testing and diagnosis
we came to the conclusion the exhaust system was plugged,
which will cause that lack of power.
OK, well, here we have our vehicle.
Lovely looking.
What kind of mileage?
Oh, about 180,000 kilometers.
I don't know what that makes in miles, 110 or something?
Pretty low for Subaru.
And there is our old catalytic converter.
This is an aftermarket converter, too,
that was in the vehicle.
That's this part right here.
That is it, yeah.
So on a Subaru, these converters that you're looking at the whole
and sort of entire exhaust manifold and converter,
those two pieces on the ends that look similar,
there's four holes, so four cylinder engine,
those bolt up to the cylinder heads.
And so the catalytic converter is located very close
to cylinder heads for efficiency.
The hotter the catalytic converter gets
and the faster it gets hot, the more efficient it is.
So what was the rest of the story here?
You just replaced this piece then?
Yeah, we basically replaced that whole unit
that we're looking at right there.
So unfortunately, it's kind of an expensive job
because the part's very expensive
because of all the piping that you get with it,
but there's no other option
on this particular model of Subaru.
And this is the case with all modern vehicles.
The catalytic converters are usually
part of the exhaust manifold
or very, very close to the manifold.
So you usually get a whole bunch of extra pipes
and pieces and it's expensive.
Okay, so we have another thing.
Let me just share that.
So what's the rest of the story here?
Yeah, okay.
So the rattle was inside the catalytic converter
and very distinct.
Are we going to have a listen to this?
We can do that.
Yeah, let's do that.
And then we'll talk about the plugged exhaust part of it.
For those who love cowbell.
So what we're listening to there
is what's left of the catalyst,
which normally fits very tightly
inside that round cylinder.
It's basically broken apart.
And so when it breaks apart, of course,
that, you know, it's all hard material.
It has to go somewhere.
There's two catalytic converters on the Subaru.
That's the main cat.
And then there's a secondary cat
further down the stream of the exhaust.
So all those little bits and pieces,
they all break apart.
And so they plugged the second catalytic converter,
which was causing a lack of power.
So there's two options with that.
Either replace the whole unit,
which again is expensive,
not as expensive as this one,
but it's an expense.
What we decided to do is just take it out,
take it apart,
and we were able to actually shake it out
and bang it and remove most of the debris
from inside the catalytic converter
and then put it back in.
It seemed to work fine.
So on the floor of the shop,
I didn't take a picture.
There was quite a pile of little metallic bits and pieces
that was the catalytic converter
that was in the cowbell piece.
So you swept that up
and sold it for a million dollars
because it's all palladium.
Yeah, well, we didn't end up in the garbage
because there wasn't much of it.
But yeah, anyways, that's kind of the story.
I took it for a good long road test up a hill
and the vehicle seemed to have adequate power.
So it might be that it's, you know,
it's on the edge of needing to be replaced,
but to me it felt good.
So I figure you don't save the customer
a fair chunk of money.
Since he'd already spent quite a bit on this first piece.
Yeah, the first piece, exactly.
Yeah.
So the vehicle ran great afterwards
and everybody's happy, sort of.
So if you're looking for service for your Subaru in Vancouver,
if you have some cowbell happening,
the guys to see are Pawlik Automotive.
You can reach them online at pawlikautomotive.com.
You can book your appointment right there.
They'll get ready for your appointment as well.
You can call them at 604-327-7112
to book your appointment.
You have to book ahead.
They're always busy.
Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Thanks so much for watching and listening.
Thanks, Bernie.
Thank you, Mark.
And thanks for watching.
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