i am sure they would need the whole car, thats just the passkey relearn. the pcm contains the vin, some radios need to access that, not sure when they started that either. also all the learned values sometimes need a forced reset, forget what they call that. if it needs the pcm i would take it to someone who has the tools to program it.

I have sinned and ignored the golden rule. Before anything else, fix what you know is broken. I suspected that the cat was faulty, but I used a vacuum test and decided that it was not plugged. I was wrong. Today out of frustration, I took a sawzall to it. Problem seems to have disappeared. I will weld in a pipe tomorrow (no emissions tests in MN ) and then I will investigate the other issues I was seeing. Thank you to jwfirebird and mike for your advice, and to any others who took the time to read this and contemplate. This has been my only emotional support for the last couple of weeks. I'll let you guys know what happens when I get her back on the road. Love the site Mike!

PS: I will investigate what caused it to fail, won't post unless it'* out of the ordinary

running rich, most commonly lack of spark is what causes extra build up. do they check the codes? strait piped cat will cause the cel to come on.

Minnesota no longer checks anything on vehicles. We had emissions tests years ago, but Jesse "The Body" Ventura eliminated them. I can live with the check engine light for now, surprised it didn't set one before this. I'll probably buy a new cat in the spring.

must be nice, i live in the second worst state.

California being the 1st.