Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting cat plugged?

i have this problem...
there are two little hoses in the back of the engine...they come from exhaust and go to "backpack"? sensor, and every time when going with higher rpm, one of them comes off, which means there's too much back pressure. What's causing it? plugged cat?? i dont see anything else there.
Please help!
it's a 2.5 '96 contour.
thanks!

What size are these hoses you say come loose? I think maybe your talking about EGR?? There is a 1/2" metal tube that comes up from the exhaust manifold and goes to the EGR valve. (2" round silver "hat" at back/top of engine with 1/8" vacume hose on top) There is a pic of the EGR valve in this post:

http://www.contour.org/cgi-ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=2&t=002436&p=

If this is leaking when you're at high rpms, you may have a cracked or lose EGR tube, but you could have clogged cats. There is a recall on this and the emmisions warranty is good for 80K miles. You actually have 3 cats and one or all 3 may be plugged.

yes, those are the hoses that come off. When on higher rpm, they come off and after a little driving the check engine light will come on because the egr valve stops functioning, right?
but i read those posts that u put, and i dont understand how's that going to fix my problem? i actually dont understand what they're trying to do? it was something with the egr valve gasket??
tell me a little bit more about it.
you also mentioned that there's recall on this? where can i find that so i can go to dealer and try to complain about it. This car just has too many problems

thanks for your help!!

Mali,

The other post I mentioned wont help you. It just had a picture of the EGR valve to make sure we were talking about the same tubes.

You are probably right about your check engine light, but it could light up for many reasons.

The FAQ section has some info on the recall
here .

I think your cats are probably plugged. Take the recall info to a dealer if your car has less than 80K miles. If it's past 80K, you'll have to pay. It will be cheaper to go somewhere besides the dealer. If your pre-cats are plugged, gut them instead of fixing them. Your car will still pass emission tests if you have a good main cat. Pre-cats are over $1000 to fix. (Not worth it imho)

yes we're talking about the EGR valve. The tubes are not on the pic, at least i couldn't see them. They're kind of hidden, and you can c 'em a little bit when u stick ur had by the air intake. The hoses go from manifold and go to (what i was told) a 'backpack' sensor...and from there goes to EGR, i guess. It is hard to see how everything goes...not even any room to stick ur hand in there.
But anyway...i thought it was a cat. I called dealer and they want 275CND for a new cat...kind of stupid...i reather go with performance one..even cheaper. Speaking of cats, u mentions that this car has 2 pre-cats. Where are they located? and how to i get to them??
And thanks for the recall info. I have to check on the dealer for this recall...it might be different then in US. And my car has 123K km...which is around 77k miles. Hopefully, the recall works.

anyway...
thanks for all ur help!

if anyone else had this problem, please let me know!
or if anyone else has any other ideas what the problem could be!?

help appriciated!

thanks!

well...i just found out that the cat on my car has warranty. It doesn't have a recall, not on my car...but at least it has a warranty. So, i'm taking to dealer where they're going to check if cat is the problem...and maybe replacing it. Now i'm just hoping that cat is the problem, so I dont have to pay anything to fix this stupid car. I already put too much money into it.
Anyway, i'll post what the problem was as soon as i find out.

thanks for all your help!

I literally just went through the same thing. I'll bet you get a hiss from the engine bay huh? My Cats too were under the recall but the dealer tried to make me pay for the subsiquencial (spelling?) damage from the 2 hoses that came off. I argued that it was not broken before my cats plugged up so why should I have to pay? They told me that there was no way that these hoses would blow off the way they did if they weren't already damaged. The long and short was that I didn't pay but till now I wasn't sure if I had been handed a line or two. Good luck and argue till your blue in the face if they try to make you pay

well...my cats are not under recall, but they are under warranty. For all canadians here (i'm not sure what the warranty is in states), the warranty on the car is 3 years or 60,000km (which is expired), and warranty on ALL THREE CATS AND COMPUTER is 8 years or 130,000km. Just so you ppl out there know this, because I didn't till this happened.
Anyway, I already took my car to a dealer yesterday, and they should be checking it this morning (I have to call them after my class is over) and the lady I talked to was really nice. She told me that she already seen this problem on 95 and 95 contours, but they still have to check if that's the problem. But she's 99% sure the problem are cats. She even told me, if that's the problem they're not gonna bother checking which one is plugged, they're gonna replace all three of them. And that makes me happy (unless something else is the problem )
I'll post back what the problem was!

well, I called them today and they told me what the problem was. Pre-cats. They're going to replace them at no charge. Too bad they won't replace the main one , but oh well. At least I solved the problem.
Anyway,
thanks for all ur help!

gotta go now!

Mali, thanks for your original post on this item, I too have been suffering from these two hoses coming off on my Contour which has 120,000km on the odometer. Can you tell me the location of the dealer you use?