Mini Cooper bad cat

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A guy I work with has a '05 Mini with 200k+ miles on it. He's had some costly repairs done lately, and another one just came up. It started loosing power at speed. Shop said they think it's a bad catalytic converter. This car has a manifold, to cat, to another cat one piece unit. They quoted him $4k for the repair, using OEM exhaust. I see you can buy aftermarket for $400-500. He said the CEL is on sometimes, then off at other times.

I'm tempted to try to help the guy out and say I'd replace this for him, but I don't want to open a can of worms. Anyone replace this exhaust piece before? How tough of a job is it?
 
Tell him to buy a Megan Racing catless header and have an exhaust shop one-ball and weld a new cat to the factory cat back.

It'll sound perfect and net him a bunch of midrange power, all for under $500.
 
If the state doesn't have specific catalyst requirements then an aftermarket is the smarter choice. A small muffler shop should be able to do all the work. As far as how difficult the job is, I have no idea it could be hard if it's tight in there.
 
Gut the precat out, leave the main cat alone.

You should be able to unbolt the precat on most cars, and shove something in.

Known problem with precats, the small size leads to early failure...
 
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