Dodge Neon Catalytic Converter Scrap Price – How Much Is The Cat?

When your Dodge Neon has a bad catalytic converter, you may get depressed. The problem is that you will have to pay some money to replace the cat in order to pass the fog test and to keep driving your car. Neon is not a new vehicle at all, so its catalytic converter may fail any day. But is there good news in this?

Today, we are going to tell you about the scrap price of the bad catalytic converter from your Dodge Neon. It means that you can easily sell your converter and make some money. Of course, it will not compensate for the repair costs, but at least you will get some money back instead of observing the rusty piece of scrap metal being placed on one of the shelves in your garage.

Here are some important things we'll discuss today:

1. Dodge Neon catalytic converter - type and precious metals inside.
2. How much can you get for an old original catalytic converter?
3. How to replace the car converter on Dodge Neon?
4. Who will want to buy the old catalytic converter?

Let's get started!

Dodge Neon cat converter - type and some features

Unfortunately, we see a lot of wrong information about selling the Dodge catalytic converter that is malfunctioning. Some people say that it isn't worth anything because it doesn't contain a lot of precious metals. While some other people say that it can be worth $250 thanks to its rich content. So, who says the truth?

The truth is somewhere in the middle. Your Dodge Neon catalytic converter actually contains up to 5 grams of palladium, about 5 grams of platinum, and also 1 gram of rhodium. You can calculate that it makes around $1000 worth of precious metals and you are right. But to get these metals out you will need to have some professional equipment and a government license for the recycling business.

Here are some facts about the Dodge Neon catalytic converter:

• it's located between the muffler and the exhaust manifold, closer to the engine;
• the converter has Dodge or Chrysler logo on it and also has a serial number;
• the cat is not big, it's a mid-sized converter (that's why it's not that expensive);
• the converter is an integral part of the exhaust system and it comes with a piece of exhaust pipe;
• if the cat has already been replaced with an aftermarket one, it is welded into the pipe;
• if it's damaged and empty, the cat isn't worth a cent because it's now just a piece of scrap metal.

All the precious metals are located inside the cat, in the ceramic honeycomb which is meant to filter the exhaust gasses. Once the ceramic honeycomb is broken, the cat becomes very cheap - no precious metals are located inside. So, when you are trying to sell a damaged Dodge Neon catalytic converter, you will probably get much less money than you plan.

Dodge Neon was produced between 1993 and 2005 with the generation change in 2000. It's not a very popular model now because it's old. And this makes its catalytic converter fail often. It's hard to find an original Chrysler cat for replacing and the expenses for this are just insane. So, let's talk about the prices.

What's the scrap price of a Dodge Neon catalytic converter?

When we are talking about the scrap price of a classic Dodge converter, we can guess it's somewhere near $100, and today it's true for the Dodge Neon. We can say that you will not get over $200 for your Neon cat because it doesn't contain a lot of precious metals and it's a risky purchase for recycling companies.

But selling your cat for less than $100 is not a good decision. You should get some money to buy an aftermarket cat or at least to pay for labor. So, now we are going to tell you about the places where you can sell your Dodge Neon catalytic converter.

Here are the most popular ones:

1. Scrapyards in your town or city. These companies buy out all parts and even cars when you don't need them anymore. But for a Neon cat, they will only pay $20-$30 which is a ridiculous price.
2. Private sales through eBay advertising or through any other online resources. You may use this if you have plenty of time and strong nerves to speak to possible buyers and explain the same things one hundred times a day.
3. Middlemen. These guys are foxy and they will not give you the full price because they just want to earn money with your converter. Probably, they will offer about $50 for your converter which is better than in scrapyards, but much worse than you actually can get.
4. Recycling companies. Now, these companies are the final institution for your catalytic converter. Sooner or later, all cats will get to these companies and will be recycled. You shouldn't lose your money - just go to recycling companies right away and get the highest price for your cat.

To sell a catalytic converter, you may use whatever option you like. But the most appropriate option, from our point of view, is a recycling company. You will get more money and you will also sell your cat legally to a company that obeys all rules and laws and recycles these converters according to the set of important requirements.

It means that the leftovers of the cat will not be thrown away - they will be recycled according to the required procedures and will not harm nature. But still, the biggest motivation is getting more money - no one else will pay you more than recycling companies.

How to replace a catalytic converter in your Dodge Neon?

Unfortunately, buying an original Dodge converter for a Neon is something impossible. You can find offers online, but when you try to buy them, the company selling the cats will say they don't have them anymore and will offer you an aftermarket alternative.

So, buying an aftermarket cat is an optimal decision. You have two options - you may buy a cheap aftermarket cat or a more expensive one. We recommend buying expensive cats made by well-known manufacturers. Because this way you will ensure that the cat will assist you in passing the fog test. Cheaper options are usually not that effective.

Aftermarket cats have two problems: they don't live long and they don't cost a lot if you want to sell them to recycling companies. The average price of an aftermarket cat from your Dodge Neon will be around $10.

What do recycling companies do with the Neon converters?

Now you know that eventually, all cat converters that can't clean the exhaust gasses anymore go to recycling companies. Aftermarket cats can still go to scrapyards because iron is the most expensive material they have.

But the original cats will anyway go to recycling companies and be recycled to get the precious metals out. Unfortunately, this task is not very easy to complete and the companies need a lot of equipment and specialists to successfully do this.

Here are some steps that your Neon converter will go through:

1. At first, they "peel off" the metal shell of the converter. The iron is going to be recycled separately and then sold to industrial companies.
2. Then, the honeycomb comes into action. The only chance to get those metals out of it is to heat it to very high temperatures.
3. For heating and melting metals, companies use furnaces and different energy sources. This is the most expensive part of the work.
4. After that, they separate different metals from an alloy that they have got in the previous step. This is also a complicated task.
5. Only then, they will gather and sell the precious metals.

Recycling companies need to spend money on taxes, equipment, salaries, rent, etc. So, they can't pay you even half of the money they will get from your converter. That's why a Dodge Neon converter will only cost $100. We haven't seen anyone selling a converter of that age at a higher price.

But you may try. For getting the best price, you will just need to quote from different companies. Find as many recycling companies as you can and then just apply using their application form on the websites. You will get many price offers and will be able to choose the best one.

Final words

Dodge Neon is not a new car and it has some problems now. One of the possible problems is the malfunctioning catalytic converter. All you can do is replace it with a new one, but your old original Neon converter costs some money. You can sell it to a recycling company and get compensation for your expenses. We hope, now you know how much the scrap converter from a Dodge Neon costs, and you will not sell it cheaply to some tricky scrapyard or to a middleman.