All this talk about cat converters

["John Fielding" <johnf@domain.elided>]

Hi All, no Alfa content here but an interesting story that happened here recently.

In a local actuality magazine published here an article featured the nefarious dealings of
a certain Gemanic motor manufacturer based here.  Seems a guy in Cape Town
bought an A**i A4 1.8T cos' it was fitted with a cat converter, he paid big $$'s cos the
car is fully imported and attracts an additional tax because of this .

Now in this country we have no emissions issues as yet, talk is that it will be introduced
maybe in 2010 or later, who knows?  Why buy a car fitted with a cat con when the law
doesn't require it?  Well the guy was planning to emigrate to the UK in the future as he
was originally from there and under the UK tax & customs laws if you have owned a car here
for longer than 2 years it doesn't cost any duties to import to the UK, it is simply
treated as part of the "chattels & possessions" belonging to you.

Well he went shopping for a suitable new car, chose the A**i 1.8T cos it was emission
legal in the UK & Europe and the brochure listed the emissions features "O2 sensor, cat
converter etc etc".  The salesman confirmed the car indeed did have a cat converter and
the workshop manager instructed the new owner on collecting his new car "under no
circumstances use unleaded fuel cos it will destroy the converter".  All of this was known
by the buyer and he dutifully paid an extra 5c a litre everytime he filled up with
unleaded fuel, cos unleaded here actually cost more than leaded!  Screwy tax system here!
The owner was very pleased with his new purchase, although he could have bought a much
cheaper locally made car, and he lavished vast sums on servicing over a lengthy period,
everything had to be just right for his "new toy".

Fast forward a while and the time to depart is approaching and he has to obtain an
emissions clearance certificate for importing the vehicle into the UK.  He goes along to a
certified testing station for a smog check (funny we have several of those but no legal
requirement to comply, they exist to check imported vehicles!), and was told that his
vehicle fails the UK emissions test badly.  The car is only about 18 months old and
meticulously serviced by the A**i agent and only genuine A**i parts have been used - yada
yada - when the tester informs him the car never will pass emissions as it has no cat
converter!

Seems A**i have been selling a lot of cars claiming they have cat converters fitted when
in fact they aren't fitting them!  The owner was livid and confronted them about the
matter only to be shown the "fine print" in the sales brochure which stated that the
specification is only "a representation of the build standard & some vehicles may not have
all the features listed, A**i reserves the right to amend specifications etc etc ".

The "cat converter" was cut open by an independent test laboratory and found to
contain ------------ nothing - just an empty box!!!!

The owner is now down a lot of $$'s and has a car he can't legally import to the UK
without spending about $4000 to have it brought up to emissions standards, which the UK
will not accept because it wasn't done by the original factory and tested against the
certification lodged with the EU specification authorities.  A**i have washed their hands
of the matter but have offered technical advise to assist the conversion, no suggestion of
them paying for the conversion.  The case is going to court soon!

BTW  The sulphur content in the fuels produced here are far too high for cat converters to
work correctly, many of the imported vehicles have the converters removed by the agent
before delivering the cars to the buyers, cos they make a terrible smell of rotten eggs!

It could only happen here.

John
Durban
South Africa
Alfetta 1.8L turbo - no cat converter!
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