[05RAV]

You figure a bad cat can have that big of an impact of fuel economy?

Like an axe murderer will a bad cat kill your fuel economy. Your engine will perform like it's pulling a heavy load . . . all the time. And so it goes for systems that degrade slowly over time, the operator detects something has gone wrong about as well as your brain detecting its' oxygen deficient.

The last engine I dealt with this was a 3.0L Duratec. I spent thousands of dollars chasing secondary and tertiary problems. Nothing helped whatsoever. Finally the problem escalated so badly the engine could hardly pull the SUV up a mountain pass, did Ford reluctantly replace the cats like I asked many times before. Problem solved 😑

This time, and the time before, started as ever worsening fuel milage that I couldn't resolve otherwise.

This is one repair I’m not looking forward to footing the bill for haha

On order magnitude cheaper than replacing the whole vehicle Used RAV4.2s are going for >$10,000 in the U.S.

I’d likely be well served to get a smog test done similar to the device you posted earlier in this thread. Might tell me with 100% certainty that the cat has actually gone bad before I spend ~$600

I agree