2010 BMW 750li catalytic converter

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Barry.b

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Hi guys
I am looking for some help or advice please.
My brother is driving a 2010 Bmw 750li and it recently had to be taken away for repairs on the back of a tow truck because it went into limp mode on the freeway .

It’s not his daily driver but it is his favourite toy for cruising around in at the weekends.

To get the car back running again his mechanic replaced the ignition coils and mentioned that it might need a new o2 sensor.
It was fine again for about 2 weeks.

Now the check engine light has reappeared and the mechanic is saying it needs 2 new Californian spec catalytic converters which will be very very expensive.

He lives in San Francisco.
( They have not tried the new o2 sensors yet )

So my questions are :

Is there someone in or near San Francisco that is the go to guy for that type of BMW
I am in Ireland so I don’t know who exactly he goes to , I know it’s not the main dealers anyway.

Does someone know if there are any “affordable “ Californian spec catalytic converters available anywhere ,maybe good used ones or affordable aftermarket perhaps.

thanks again in advance for any help or tips
 
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I do not live in the Bay Area, but I bought my E12 from a BMW mechanic in the east bay. He recommended several shops that weren't his for a PPI and I had it sent to German Auto Sport in Berkeley, who did a good PPI on it before I drove it thousands of miles home. It's only one shop but it's a place to start.

As for the cat, if it's registered in CA there is no way around the CARB-legal cat. It *might* be possible to use a 49-state cat if he knows a guy and it passes the sniffer, but that's a tough pull. Unfortuantely you'd better count on replacing them with CARB-legal cats if they're bad, but exclude everything else first, certainly the O2 sensors.
 
Hi otter74
Thanks for the advice , I will pass it on to him. I think he has already had a conversation with his mechanic about maybe fitting a 49 state cat and his mechanic wasn’t too happy with that idea.
Anyway I agree that they should replace the O2 sensors first.
 
Looking at the ETK, I see only one P/N for each cat (for a 2010 F03)... Not sure where the thoughts of having different parts for CA and 49 state cars comes in....
 
Hi
I am not in California myself so I am only going on what I am being told , but it is surprising to me that a new car might get down a production line and they would already know at the factory whether that car was going to spend its days in the state of California or somewhere else.
Perhaps they are swapped out at the Californian BMW dealerships prior to being sold or something.
Thanks for checking though :)
 
It may be that there is only one cat - replacement cats in California have to have a CARB EO# on them. I’m not sure if this is only true for aftermarket cats or if it’s also true for OE cats. I suspect it is only true for aftermarket cats. If all BMW replacement cats are the same then they’re CARB-compliant. But an aftermarket cat will have to have the EO# on It. My E12 has a B35 swap in it that is CARB-compliant, with a BAR sticker in the door jamb, and the seller had to put a new cat in it a couple of months before I bought it to get it to pass emissions - the paperwork shows the EO# on the replacement (aftermarket) cat.
 
Barry.b said:
Hi
I am not in California myself so I am only going on what I am being told , but it is surprising to me that a new car might get down a production line and they would already know at the factory whether that car was going to spend its days in the state of California or somewhere else.
Perhaps they are swapped out at the Californian BMW dealerships prior to being sold or something.
Thanks for checking though :)
Click to expand...
You jest, but this used to actually be true. It was not uncommon in the 70s and well into the 80s for there to be 49-state and California versions of US-market cars. If you bought your car somewhere else and then moved to California you could take it with you, but all new cars sold in CA had to meet California emissions requirements, which were and are stricter than the federal ones. For instance, on mid-70s 911s thre were several years where CA cars had thermal reactors and 49-state cars didn’t. It was also common for powertrain availability to be different - e.g. on some 70s GM cars you could get a 302 and a 350 everywhere else, but only the 302 in California (for example.) This went away some time in the mid to late 80s, when manufacturers that weren’t already doing so made all US cars California-compliant. California was given the right to set its own standards for pollution control by the Federal Air Quality Act in 1967.
 
otter74 said:
You jest, but this used to actually be true. It was not uncommon in the 70s and well into the 80s for there to be 49-state and California versions of US-market cars. If you bought your car somewhere else and then moved to California you could take it with you, but all new cars sold in CA had to meet California emissions requirements, which were and are stricter than the federal ones. For instance, on mid-70s 911s thre were several years where CA cars had thermal reactors and 49-state cars didn’t. It was also common for powertrain availability to be different - e.g. on some 70s GM cars you could get a 302 and a 350 everywhere else, but only the 302 in California (for example.) This went away some time in the mid to late 80s, when manufacturers that weren’t already doing so made all US cars California-compliant. California was given the right to set its own standards for pollution control by the Federal Air Quality Act in 1967.
Click to expand...

Right - I had a 'California' 1984 Mercedes 300SD. The injection control system was a slightly different version than was installed in the 49 state cars (not tremendously different, but enough so). This difference caused all sorts of problems in getting parts and such for my car as I live in Washington and the folks up here were not used to looking for differences between cars in that way. In 1985, all 300SD's were the same. So - I sometimes said my car was an 1985 to avoid any confusion.
But - this difference was noted in the parts books and maintenance manuals. You just had to look - and the parts guys sometimes were kind of lazy that way. This was in the days of microfiche and binders - not the computerized things we have today.
 
Oh yes
Okay I can actually see what you meant now , that does make sense.
It must cost quite a bit extra for the car manufacturers to have to deal with the different laws across the same country.
 
Barry.b said:
Oh yes
Okay I can actually see what you meant now , that does make sense.
It must cost quite a bit extra for the car manufacturers to have to deal with the different laws across the same country.
Click to expand...
Unless the state is CA which has the GDP of Japan...
 
Is there someone in the San Francisco Area that could be recommended as a good place to get the 02 sensors replaced ?
Can any muffler place do it or should he stay with a BMW specialist ?
 
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