[widebody911]

(forgive the forced alliteration)

One of my wife's friends was looking at buying a $500 2000 Nissan Sentra that "only needs a new cat in order to smog" Yeah, right.

They were quoted $800 + labor by the dealer, and they were told that due to California law, only the dealer can install new catalytic converters.

I found one for $160 in a 30s google search, but I'd never heard the "dealer-only" line. Is there any truth to that?

In either case, I suggested they not buy the car. It hadn't been registered in 4 years (allegedly due to the cat) and the owner allegedly had sunk $4k into other "improvements and fixes" but got "tired" of the car. It has 150k on it, and oh, it needs tires, too. The friend's husband doesn't have a wrench to his name and would probably hurt himself if he got a hold of one.