Was driving in Santa Monica tonight and I saw what I thought was wadded up paper in the road. Wrong. Someone deliberately put rocks on the road. Bang! Bang! Bang! It tore the clips off my splash shield but I put new ones in when I got home. It also put a dent in the metal frame to the rear of the oil change area. I checked the oil pan and it looks ok. Took pics of the catalytic converter and will upload. Will this be a problem or can I go on my merry way?
No problem there's a brick in the middle of that bulbous piece of metal You would have to have a solid inch deep or better dent to even upset that brick with all the holes in it You're good to go Don't even look back.
Inside the casing is an insulation layer about 1/10 inch thick. The insulation is wrapped around the ceramic honeycomb core, which is the catalytic material. The ceramic honeycomb is pretty strong, but also fairly brittle. A small ding in the case should have little to no impact on the honeycomb. A larger dent may crush and pulverize a very localized area, but still little effect on its overall performance. A larger dent could cause significant cracking and breakup of the honeycomb, resulting in pieces passing down the exhaust pipe. Your damage looks to be in the small ding range.
