Chevy Cruze Catalytic Converter Scrap Price – Taking It Off and Selling

If you own a Chevrolet Cruze, you should be quite glad about what you get from your car for its good price. Yes, it's not a luxurious Cadillac or Lexus, but this vehicle has a lot of advantages. It's not expensive to repair or maintain and it's really reliable. But when it comes to catalytic converters, all cars have their flaws and possible issues.

Today, we'll tell you about the durability of catalytic converters in your Chevrolet Cruze. We'll also investigate the price of a scrap converter and let you know where you can sell it. Unfortunately, a lot of Americans just lose their money when they don't sell their old converters and just store them in their garages or sell them to scrapyards and get only a fraction of the money they could get.

Here's what you will learn here today:

• Location and type of converters installed in the Chevy Cruze.
• Catalytic converter durability in the Cruze - how long will it go?
• How much should the old converter from Chevy Cruze cost?
• Where and how can you sell this catalytic converter?
• Will you need a replacement cat converter?

Let's get started!

Where is the Cruze converter located and what does it look like?

Well, the American version of the Cruze has one or two converters depending on the year and engine. Our market offered the Cruze with 1.4L Turbo and also 1.8L engines. Both engines have one big cat converter in the exhaust manifold. The OEM part is sold together with the manifold, so it costs quite a lot of money. The second lower converter may be placed in the exhaust pipe but not all cars have it.

So, the converter is quite big for a small-displacement engine and it's not usually a problem to locate it. But taking it off the vehicle is a disaster, so you'll need some help with this. Converters are quite heavy and they are integrated with the exhaust manifold, so cutting them off is not a simple task at all.

Here are some important things to remember:

• the main catalytic converter in the Cruze is the one that's located in the exhaust manifold, the second one can still be seen as the main cat because of its size;
• some cars will have two catalytic converters while others will have one, this changed from year to year and from engine to engine;
• the Cruze will have General Motors OEM catalytic converters unless they were replaced with aftermarket ones before;
• these converters are mid-sized, and they are pretty valuable in terms of how much companies will pay for them thanks to a lot of precious metals inside;
• in your Cruze, the cat converters have some platinum and palladium, they also have a little amount of rhodium which is extremely expensive now;
• the most valuable part of the converters is its ceramic honeycomb that is located inside and covered by metal wrap.

It's not that easy to recycle catalytic converters. You won't be able to do it yourself because you will need a lot of professional and expensive equipment for this. So, in most cases, old and clogged cat converters get to recycling companies where they are taken care of. Then, the metals are sold to industrial buyers and this is the most eco-friendly way to deal with the old converter.

Leaving the old cat converter in your garage doesn't make any sense. It won't become any better after some time and it won't do anything good for you - just take some place on one of the shelves. If you sell the old converter, you will be able to reduce expenses for new cat converter installation or just get some money.

How long will the Chevy Cruze OEM converter live?

For catalytic converters, it's quite hard to work longer than 10-12 years. While some of them can manage to survive even longer, some still die before they hit the 10-year point. Also, the average mileage limitation for a catalytic converter from GM is about 120,000 miles. They may die sooner than that if they are hit by something on the road or if your engine has some problems.

For example, a misfiring engine causes overheating of the catalytic converter because the fuel which is unburnt in the combustion chamber will get into the cat converter and ignite there causing micro explosions. This will kill the converter faster than you may think.

Too high oil level and bad fuel are also quite common factors that kill the catalytic converter. Overall, any problems with your engine may cause premature death of the cat converter. And this will add a lot of expenses to get the car back on track.

So, the catalytic converter in the Chevy Cruze will require replacement somewhere near 120,000 miles or after about 10 years of use. It means a lot of first-generation Cruzes are now at risk of this problem.

How much should a scrap catalytic converter from the Cruze cost?

The Cruze cat converter is not really big in comparison with the average converters on the market. It's a mid-sized domestic cat which shouldn't be very expensive. But still, you can get decent money if you know how to sell it correctly.

In our opinion, the average price for the scrap catalytic converter from the first-generation Chevrolet Cruze should be between $140 and $210 as of now. Of course, the price may change even the next day after we publish this article, so further we are going to tell you how you can check the price quickly and avoid being tricked by buyers.

First of all, here are the factors that may rapidly change the average price for the Chevy Cruze catalytic converter:

• the condition of your cat - damaged or super rusty converters usually cost much less;
• the serial number on the cat converter which defines its type and specs;
• the prices for precious metals - they may change every single day;
• the buyer of your catalytic converter.

Pay attention to the last bullet in this list. The buyer is extremely important. While one person or company may offer only $25 for the OEM General Motors converters from your Cruze, some other buyers will offer more than $200.

Here are some types of buyers who you can sell your Cruze converter to:

• scrapyards - extremely greedy guys that want to trick you out of money;
• exhaust shops - this is not their main business, so they just offer you a little discount for the converter;
• private buyers and middlemen - those will offer about half of what we've named earlier as the average price;
• eBay buyers - not a bad option but only if your catalytic converter still works;
• recycling companies - these businesses will offer fair prices if you know how to work with them.

So, again, the last bullet in the list is the most important. All other buyers are just middlemen and resellers while recycling companies actually buy your Cruze converter to recycle it and then sell precious metals.

How can you sell a Cruze converter to a recycling company?

• First of all, find websites of several recycling companies - don't rely on a single buyer.
• Then, take your converter, clean it a little and take pictures of it.
• Make sure you can understand its condition by looking at those pictures.
• Use the websites you've found before to send those pics and some information on your converter to recycling companies.
• Wait for about one day for all companies to answer back and deliver their price offers.
• Compare the offers and choose the company that is ready to give you more money than the other ones.
• Make sure the chosen company will also pay for shipping.
• Just follow the simple guide the company will send you to sell your converter and get the money.

Will you need a replacement catalytic converter for the Cruze?

The Chevy Cruze will obviously need a replacement catalytic converter if you want to drive it or sell it to another person. The only way you won't need a converter instead of the OEM one is if you want to scrap your car which is not really likely.

All cars in most US states need catalytic converters to pass the emission control test or the so-called fog test. You will also need to have a decent converter that will ensure your vehicle has a low rate of emissions. Otherwise, you will have to pay the fine and repair your vehicle to then pass the test once more.

Final words

We also hate all those emission control things that hold your vehicle back and take money out of your pockets. But at least now you can return some money and get compensation when you need to replace the catalytic converter. Now you know how to sell your old OEM cat converter from the Chevy Cruze and get more money than you could get before.

Of course, you will still need to buy another catalytic converter, but at least you can pay for an aftermarket cat using the money that you get after selling the old converter.