I read about the price differences a little when I was planning to do the cleaning. IIRC, I think a primary source of cost difference will likely be the amount of catalyst metals and therefore the long-term durability. Cutting back on the pricey metals would cut costs. In the short term both CATs will work fine, but the cheaper one will fail first. (Also, probably they save on labor in their supply chain through unsafe mines some sweatshop somewhere in the world.)
That's one reason I chose to clean (the OEM Honda CAT is 19 years old and still puffin' passable gasses!).
Oh... I forgot to reply to this part of cajunfj40's message:
Quote:
Originally Posted by cajunfj40
Hello California98Civic,
... Bummer on the no re-test. Did you happen to keep your old smog results over the years before cleaning, to see the degradation over time? If so, you can still get some information by comparing the next few smog test results after the cleaning process to see if there's a change in the downward slope angle, or if the slope moved higher, indicating either it is working better or worse or degrading at a slower or faster rate. True, you won't have an immediate A/B test result, but you can look at the trend over time. More variables in play - state of the test equipment, what it's baseline setting was, etc. - but better than no result at all. ...
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Yes, I did save them. And yes, I will be very interested to see the change (if any) good or bad and post here!