I purchased the whole manifold/converter assembly when I had a fouled catalytic converter on my 2012 2.0L a few months ago. I searched for a cheaper and easier solution for several weeks, but the easiest fix was to just replace the whole thing. The spacing on the assembly is pretty tight, and cutting out just the converter and welding in a new one will likely cost more in labor than the cheaper "cat-only" piece would have saved you. It took me about 2-3 hours to replace the whole assembly, plus the 2 oxygen sensors.

 

What kind of cat did you get oem or Aftermarket

 

I eventually bought a used manifold/converter assembly from a 2 year old car, and had it installed and matches just fine, the error is gone, car runs fine. All way cheaper

 

Cool man thx! When you say bulbous what do you mean

 

There are two prongs welded to the outlet flange. They poke through a rubber exhaust hanger/mount near the middle of the car, around the dogbone motor mount, if I recall correctly. On the tip of each prong, the tip goes from being a steel rod to a steel ball, slightly larger in OD than the rod by roughly 1/8" diameter. This is to prevent the prongs from slipping out of the rubber mount too easily. However, in the unit that I received, the prong bars were slightly too long and, after going through the rubber exhaust mount, they touched a piece of the subframe (a crossmember, if I recall correctly). Again, my memory is poor, but if I recall correctly, the system would rattle like crazy at idle or no throttle (coasting). The sound would go away under acceleration, as the exhaust system is slightly pushed backwards toward the rear of the car, due to motor torque and all that. Rather than remove the whole assembly and shorten the prong bars, I simply affixed a metal-cutting blade to my sawzall and trimmed off the bulbous ends of the prongs. The prongs still protrude out of the rubber mount, but they would have to push back at least 3 inches to completely fall out of the mount.