I want a H3 so I've been looking around the Charlotte area. Found one locally but there are potential issues so I thought I'd ask here.

The cat has a soot mark about 1.5" wide from front to back. It has gray edges around it. Definitely soot, not burned fluids. And i see a perfectly round 1/4" hole in the middle. Service guy said there are holes for draining moisture. I call bs because I've never heard of that. And it shouldn't have soot because that totally defeats the purpose of a cat. Ideas?

The other issue is surface rust. Mostly around the leaf spring supports. But the pumpkin head has a bunch of surface rust too. It was a NY vehicle, figures....

Run away or barter down, feedback?

 

Welcome to HF.

H3 questions go in the ......... H3 section. Go figure?


If I understand you correctly, you see some surface rust on the diff/diff cover, and some on the frame at the rear leaf spring mounts (shackles?). That would not be the slightest concern to me, you will never in your life find one here in MI without some under carriage rust.

The soot thing is weird? There are some Cats that have a condensation drain hole, but honestly, never remember seeing one on my 3, but really never looked.

 

There's generally a hole in the muffler to drain moisture. If there's a hole in the cat and it's got soot around it, I'd say it's probably backed up and someone put a hole in it to keep it from backfiring. I've gotta climb up under mine this evening to install a new skid plate, I'll take a pic.

 

Thanks for the replies!


The soot was literally from the front of the cat to the rear, totally covered from one end to the other about 1-2" wide. There was a grayish edge to it. I ran my finger across it and it came off dry and black, like from the inside of a fireplace. Not wet at all. Like there was a leak in the front and it was blown back but I couldn't see any hole in the front of the cat. It was weird!


At the least, there is an exhaust leak, has to be. Maybe some cats do have condensate drains, but even then it would have to just drain water, not something that would be sooty, unless there was a leak internally.

 

But I've never heard of a cat with a condensate drain hole. Why would you need that on something that gets over 500 degrees??


Then again, what's a cat cost for an H3?

 

to much. I believe they are somewhere around $200. I need one on mine

 

Is this the only concerns?
They are quite repairable.
Chris

 

also remember you have two cats on the H3. you have a pre-cat on the end of the manifold.

 

$200 is cheap, did you mean $1200?

 

I've seen the same soot on 3 different vehicles, I guess it's an non issue..