Scary sight

[MrBiglund]

Actually, something similar happened with me a few years back on my chevy corsica. I was driving on the highway and felt that the shifter area was getting warm/hot. I immediately pulled off the road and upon further inspection, noticed that my cat was glowing red hot. But the car didn't have any symptoms of rough idle, or running on partial cylinders. I had the car towed and got the cat replaced, plus, got a tune up done right after. My mechanic told me that the engine must of been dumping some unburned fuel in the exhaust for the cat to get red hot like that. By the way the old cat was totally burned out, completely hollow inside, I guess the innard must of melted away. This obviously wasn't oil related as I regularly had it changed.

 

[BuickGN]

Originally Posted By: RacerE7773
Originally Posted By: 01rangerxl
Some people will keep driving as long as their vehicle will somewhat move under its own power.

About a month ago I saw a '95-'02 Range Rover billowing white and blue smoke down the road...so it was burning a lot of coolant and oil I guess. Going up hills you couldn't even see it there was so much smoke. It also had two nearly flat tires.
More money than brains they must have.

I dated a girl a long time ago that was beyond rich. One day we're cruising along and I notice she's hitting every pothole in the road and it's like she's swerving to hit them on purpose. When I asked her, she said it was fun and was laughing while hitting very large holes in a Brabus CL65 Merc with nearly $20,000 in rims and tires. I wish I had enough money to just not care anymore.

 

[grease_monkey]

Originally Posted By: rpn453
Originally Posted By: grease_monkey
wow that is some scary [censored]. because my pregnant wife drives a KIA optima. but at the same time i religiously service the car so i guess i should not be too worried.


Parts can fail regardless of maintenance. If your wife would continue to drive a car even when it is suffering from serious and extremely obvious problems, you should still be worried!
her car runs like a peach because i take care of it. the car that this guy is talking about in this thread obviously sounds like it was neglected. if your car was blowing smoke and running on two cylinders would you keep driving or call emergency road side service? . it is not a known problem with the optima. so in turn i should NOT be worried

 

[rationull]

This is making me wonder what would happen in my Civic if the cat superheated. It's mounted in the engine bay, hanging right off the front of the engine, bolted directly to the exhaust manifold. At least there's a heat shield between it and the fan shroud. I wonder if the radiant heat would be hot enough to warp the engine block, though.

Not sure I'd get any warning before the car started running badly.

 

[Challenger71]

Recently overheard a guy in a repair shop I was at that his mustang (V6) CEL was on and it was "running rough", he also told the counter guy that it needed more "giddyup". LMAO, I had to contain myself. His Mustang needed more giddyup...I give up.

 

[dishdude]

This is why you just don't rip off that loose heat shield that is rattling around!