BX16V.com Forum

how do you tell if you have a 148hp cat model?? mine was registered in april 1992

The first obvious answer is do you have a CAT? Having a 3-row ECU is a start. Also, the engine code (on the top edge of the block) will be DFW (not D6C 160bhp).

Have a good look under the front of the car - the cat equipped car has the cat welded into the front section of the downpipe and has the same appearance as the rest of the downpipe (a heavy looking finish over the whole section) - what you mustn't do is confuse it with the resonator box that is fitted in more or less the same place on a non-cat car, but looks much more like a regular exhaust box. Another dead giveaway is if you have a probe with a wire coming off it attached to the downpipe - this is the lambda sensor for the ECU.

The other obvious difference is that the VIN has a series of different characters for the cat equipped versions as opposed to the non-cat, but all the history I still have from my cat equipped 16V is at home, so I can't quote what those letters are!

Just because the car was registered in 1992 doesn't mean it has a cat - it's quite likely to have sat around pre-registration, and even then existing vehicle types weren't required to have a cat till 1/1/1993. Some perverse people opted to order the car with a cat, but those I know of were brought in by Citroen as demo models and then sold on through the dealer network - not many at all. Mine was built in 1992 and as well as the cat had a metal bonnet, so lardy and slow! I believe it's now been broken for the engine which is a real shame as it was low mileage and in 1st class mechanical condition

Right, home now!

Cat equipped cars have the letters FC repeated twice in the VIN number - non cat cars have EJ repeated twice.

That is by far the easiest way to tell whether it HAD a cat when it came out of the factory - it may not have a cat now, even if it did, and the checks on the engine code are the only way to be sure if it's been transplanted at some point in its near 20 year life.....

Cats were fitted as standard on 16vs in Germany from mid 1988 I think. Mine was made before that time but I have to pay a whopping €520 a year in tax as it's 'emissions unclassified' whereas the Catted version is €250 a year tax - still a lot. That's why my 16v only comes out for a few months in summer and I only pay for those months.

If I can hold out until 2018 and the condition is good enough I can apply for 'historical status' and, once granted the 'H' plate tax goes down considerably. At the moment though the condition is more 'hysterical' than 'historical!'.

we used to have historic car status in england. any car over 25 years old was tax free. that was removed in 1998 so now people are paying full whack to tax cars over 35 years old, somehow that doesnt seem right. thanks a lot Tony!

So is yours cat-equipped then?

the car has been in a garage getting repaired for the past week. so i havnt had a chance to check. i just checked the v5 though and it has EJ twice, so its a non-CAT, yeh!!

PTS Developments?

how the hell do you know that!!!!!!!

Your location is Berkshire - I used to work in Crowthorne (TRL) and PTS is just down the road it's where mine got looked after when I first got it, but then I moved to Surrey and it became rather a pain to get to.

Hope Pete is keeping well?