My truck just threw this code at 43000 miles. Dealer says it needs a new catalytic converter, which is back ordered ( as usual ).

My question is...is it OK to continue to drive it until the part comes in??? Dealer said yes, but I'm not too confident.

Thanks in advance.

 

The P0420 code comes from the rear O2 sensors so as long as you don't have driveability issues like slow acceleration/poor power (indicating a clogged catalytic converter) it shouldn't hurt anything. This assumes the dealer completed a proper diagnosis and it really is a bad catalytic converter.

 

A friend has a 2.7 and I believe it was a 2018 as well, he was constantly getting that code constantly, I can't remember if he did the sensor more than once but he somewhat recently replaced it and the light has stayed out. If you aren't under warranty just something to think about.

Agreed that it's perfectly safe to drive unless you have drivability issues or mpg starts dropping

 

You should be ok to drive the truck. You might notice some drive-ability issues though.

 

You shouldn't need a new Catalytic converter at 43000 miles unless you've been using REALLY bad gas and getting horrible mileage...

 

Kinda what I thought as well...not real happy with it. In addition to that I had to get several coils replaced in
November and it went in for a TSB at 4300 miles which required all new fuel injectors etc.

 

If you had to have coils replaced due to misfires and they were on bank 1, that took the converter out.
With misfires, you cannot drive the vehicle because the unburnt gas ends up burning in the cats and melt the internal substrate.
They run near 900 degrees normally and will burn raw gas.
Fuel injection does not always stop in a misfire condition.
Ask me how I know, been there.
The Ox 2 sensor tip may even be melted from the extreme temp.

 

Thank you for that insight. That's probably exactly what happened then.

 

Same here at 6k. But I needed to get a new converter at the same time. The bad injectors caused the converter damage. Good news is the converter has 80k warranty.