Cat converter issue. 2011 Lt 2.4 Fwd

[Alex D]

Hello, im new to this forum

i have a 2011 equinox lt with the 2.4 and its fwd, it has 154,900 miles on it. Nice little suv Yesterday driving home, the car just kind of dropped in power now it was sputtering some but at first i thought maybe it was a engine miss maybe bad plug, bad injector, but then it didnt really wanna go at all. I mean it would bogg out at a traffic light if i didnt shift it into neutral. And when it did go, it would sound like it was clogged like the enging would sound super muffled, and then itd go back to normal power randomly. Now I had changed both 02 sensors recently for almost the same issue. Down on power and sputtering, had to shift into neutral at lights to avoid bogging out. and the previous owner had changed the throttle body once. It gave the P0420 code when I changed the o2 sensors originally. Is it more than likely it is the cat. Because at this point I can't think of anything else. If so, is there one of the 2 that is more likely to have gone bad? I've purchased both change but it's also 100 out here today and if I can just fix one and be good til the heat wave moves on I will lol. Thank you for your time .

Alex

 

[radler2560]

Hello, im new to this forum

i have a 2011 equinox lt with the 2.4 and its fwd, it has 154,900 miles on it. Nice little suv Yesterday driving home, the car just kind of dropped in power now it was sputtering some but at first i thought maybe it was a engine miss maybe bad plug, bad injector, but then it didnt really wanna go at all. I mean it would bogg out at a traffic light if i didnt shift it into neutral. And when it did go, it would sound like it was clogged like the enging would sound super muffled, and then itd go back to normal power randomly. Now I had changed both 02 sensors recently for almost the same issue. Down on power and sputtering, had to shift into neutral at lights to avoid bogging out. and the previous owner had changed the throttle body once. It gave the P0420 code when I changed the o2 sensors originally. Is it more than likely it is the cat. Because at this point I can't think of anything else. If so, is there one of the 2 that is more likely to have gone bad? I've purchased both change but it's also 100 out here today and if I can just fix one and be good til the heat wave moves on I will lol. Thank you for your time .

Alex

I bought my 2011 2.4 new. GM had a customer satisfaction programs to 1) replace the defective piston rings and new pistons, 2) the cat, which became clogged due to the motor oil by passing the pistons rings into the exhaust manifold. Any GM dealer can check the GM computer to verify the repairs. You can also check NSHTA for the appropriate bulletins. I have 177,000 miles and it doesn't burn a drop of oil.
Good luck

 

[radler2560]

I bought my 2011 2.4 new. GM had a customer satisfaction programs to 1) replace the defective piston rings and new pistons, 2) the cat, which became clogged due to the motor oil by passing the pistons rings into the exhaust manifold. Any GM dealer can check the GM computer to verify the repairs. You can also check NSHTA for the appropriate bulletins. I have 177,000 miles and it doesn't burn a drop of oil.
Good luck

 

[Alex D]

I bought my 2011 2.4 new. GM had a customer satisfaction programs to 1) replace the defective piston rings and new pistons, 2) the cat, which became clogged due to the motor oil by passing the pistons rings into the exhaust manifold. Any GM dealer can check the GM computer to verify the repairs. You can also check NSHTA for the appropriate bulletins. I have 177,000 miles and it doesn't burn a drop of oil.
Good luck

I had diagnostics run on it, and the mechanic said its a bad high pressure fuel pump. And the tranny was just low on oil because its overworking itself due to trying to keep up with the engine randomly going down on power from the fuel pump. The exhaust manifold was re-welded by the previous owner. So I bought a high pressure fuel pump and the specific transmission fluid for these transmission.

 

[radler2560]

I had diagnostics run on it, and the mechanic said its a bad high pressure fuel pump. And the tranny was just low on oil because its overworking itself due to trying to keep up with the engine randomly going down on power from the fuel pump. The exhaust manifold was re-welded by the previous owner. So I bought a high pressure fuel pump and the specific transmission fluid for these transmission.

Keep me updated on your progress.

 

[sdhow]

I bought my 2011 2.4 new. GM had a customer satisfaction programs to 1) replace the defective piston rings and new pistons, 2) the cat, which became clogged due to the motor oil by passing the pistons rings into the exhaust manifold. Any GM dealer can check the GM computer to verify the repairs. You can also check NSHTA for the appropriate bulletins. I have 177,000 miles and it doesn't burn a drop of oil.
Good luck

Did the defective piston rings impact just the 2.4L 4 cylinder engines, or the V6, too?

I had a cylinder misfire that allowed fuel to pass by the rings and was getting fuel down into the oil. Ended up having to remove the engine TWICE, the second time having to do a very expensive, complete engine rebuild to finally fix the issue.

 

[radler2560]

I don't really know, however the small v6, 3L, was supplanted by the 3.6l. Additionally many manufactures had problems with their piston rings for 2011. The rings destroyed the gap in the piston which were also replace

 

[sdhow]

Mine is a 2010 3.0L V6. I had to replace the piston and rings in the #4 cylinder and all the rings on the other 5 cylinders during the rebuild. Weird thing is, the engine was fine during the compression and leakdown tests (160-165 psi) prior to the teardown. Supposedly, the intermittent misfire was due to piston ring rotation in that cylinder.

 

[pipwax]

Mine is a 2010 3.0L V6. I had to replace the piston and rings in the #4 cylinder and all the rings on the other 5 cylinders during the rebuild. Weird thing is, the engine was fine during the compression and leakdown tests (160-165 psi) prior to the teardown. Supposedly, the intermittent misfire was due to piston ring rotation in that cylinder.

It's amazing that the engineers could make so many errors in engine design.

 

[sdhow]

I don't think it's as much the engineers as it is the accountants. Are you forgetting this is GM? It's one catastrophe after another. GM is in the business of selling cars, not keeping them on the road. They want you leasing them and trading them in after 3 years.

You go to the wrecking yards nowadays and it's full of 5 - 7 yr old cars, in there for mechanical failure, not collision damage. Not even engines, often times transmission failure.