Will a damaed cat converter ...

"Sarah" gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

No.

An upstream lambda won't even "know" that the cat's got a problem. A downstream one (not on all cars) will see that the exhaust gas hasn't been converted and flag up a fault code.

Top bannana Adrian. Thanks for the super dupa fast reply :)

No. Lambda sensors are only affected by lead, the acetic acid from curing silicone sealant and a few other things. The state of the catalytic converter won't make any difference to them.

Basic answer is no, but a faulty lambda sensor can result in the cat becoming damaged.

Thats what we think has happened to our cat as we had a damaged heating element in the old lamba but my hubby still drove with it for almost 100 miles. Which I guessed knackered it.

Forgot to ask is there anything else that is likely to break from driving the car with a faulty cat ? will it cause any poor running or something (to be honest I'm not even sure what one does, one for google I think( :)

I'm just hoping nothing else breaks cause of a faulty part.

Your emissions get worse, that's it.

Or nobody bothered checking it before, you'd be unlucky to kill one that quickly.

So I'll heh urting the environment and a possible MOT fail ?

Than sounds more likely.

Out of interest how do you check a cat for function or it basically working right ?

Unless you've got a downstream/secondary lamda sensor you get the emissions checked. That's all it affects so that's all you can check,

Yup. Well unless it's mechanically broken & clogged so the gas can't get out, but you'd know about that.

Do garages check the emissi This is our my mk4 golf 1.6s 2001 car.

He did a readiness test which this scanner does and its results are:

catalyst: fail

heathe cat: pass

AC: pass

svap sys: fail

sec air sys: pass

o2 sensor: fail

If the o2 sensors failed then there's no way that vag-com can tell if the cats working or not, ditto it can't tell if the evap sys is working. The garage can just check emissions but it's worth looking at the o2 sensor