Catalytic Converter

what are the symptoms for a bad catalytic converter?

If its plugged the most common symptom is lack of power especially up a hill. Missfires, check engine light with a cat inefficiency code, ruff idle, or nothing at all. It all depends on how it has gone bad.

oh ok thanks. Someone had told me before that i needed a new one and just recently my car has been giving me power trouble. It has slow acceleration, barely pulls hills, and idle problems. So I take it that's what's wrong with it....

Those descriptions sound like a misfire. When was the last time the car had a tune up performed, including fuel filter, air filter, spark plugs, and spark plug wires, along with an inspection of the vacuum lines?

What people often don't realize is that catalytic converters will rarely fail from normal use. Often when a converter fails, it's because something with the air/fuel ratio is incorrect. The catalytic converter tries to convert excess unburned fuel in the exhaust stream to water, overheats, and starts to melt internally. Replacing the converters without fixing the source of the issue just means you'll be replacing the converters prematurely again. Often a tune up is much less expensive than a catalytic converter replacement.

-Rod