Is my catalytic converter bad because my car runs good when it is cold but then when it get hot the check engine light turns on and my car starts to run bad it also makes my exhaust sound weird it makes it sound low and then the other day i removed my exhaust and pieces of the catalytic converter were in it so im guessing it is a bad catalytic converter but then if it was plugged it would not let any hair out the back pipe so i dont know also can a bad catalytic converter make check engine light so any help is helpful thanks

 

Can you do the "paperclip trick" to make your SES light flash and see what the code is? Yes a bad cat can make the engine run bad as you described.

Where's the punctuation in that sentence, by the way?

 

Also a bad cat tends to get very hot.

 

My cat in my 85 trans am got plugged. My car was hard to start and would not rev over 2,000 rpm. I unbolted the cat and my car fired right up and would hit red line. The plugged cat ended up blowing my exhaust manifold gasket.

 

here in alberta we would just cut it off and leave it