Hey everyone, this is my first time posting here and I'm hoping for a bit of insight/advice. Like I said in the title, I have a 2006 Chevy Malibu LT. Earlier this year, I got a crack in my exhaust pipe repaired for around $250- see attached image. I mainly got this fixed since it was incredibly loud and obnoxious, and I was extremely happy with how quiet it ran after that.

However, as I was driving home on the interstate, I experienced a complete loss of power. Now, this could easily be the incorrect use of this term since I'm not exactly car savvy, so I'll explain specifically what happened. I was in the right lane going around 70 mph as usual, but suddenly when I pushed on the gas, it was completely unresponsive. The lights on the dash and my headlights were completely fine and the braking system worked, and I pulled over and waited for a few moments before trying to continue on. I was able to get maybe 2-3 miles further along the road when it happened again. I pulled over, the RPM needle would swing all the way to zero and up to 6 and back to zero, where it would then stay. When I pressed on the gas, it would putter and stutter a tiny bit, but overall it wouldn't budge. I tried to get home one more time before it happened again and I called a tow truck and got my car taken to a shop. Notably, the check engine light didn't come on during all of this until around two days later. At the time, the mechanics had absolutely no clue what the issue was but suggested that it could have been a fuel pump issue.

When the light actually came on, I got the codes pulled at two different shops, where they read as a catalytic converter issue. They told me it was clogged, I paid $1,100 to get it replaced (when I bought the car for $1,200) and it ran fine for about a week. Then, $1,350 spent to get the thing running well, it started "stalling" again. I can't drive it for more than 25 minutes MAX before it starts failing on me, and I'm pretty displeased with the car shop I visited- they told me that fixing the cat converter would solve my problems and they're going to charge me another $100 for an additional diagnostic for this new issue. (I'm not entirely sure if this is normal practice since any repairs outside of the cat converter apparently aren't covered by warranty, but I'm still a little sore about it.)

Anyway, in conclusion, I just wanted to know if any of you Chevy lovers out there might have any ideas as to what the heck is going on with my car. I scoured through the entire manual and I read up on the "check engine light" section, but... the check engine light isn't on, even with it periodically breaking down. Any and all advice is welcome!


Here's the busted flex pipe. Not 100% relevant to my post but I thought it was interesting.

 

Did they replace the upstream or downstream cat? For $1100 they should have replaced both! I had a cat replaced on my son's 2003 Blazer at a muffler shop for $300 and they did a great job. If they only replaced one of your cats the other one might also be bad. The upstream cat when it fails could clog up the downstream cat with debris. I would also do a fuel pressure test.