I noticed in a post today asking about Stebro = exhausts a mention of a catalytic converter that came from the factory = "empty". I bought our '88 used in '93. It too had an empty catalyst. I = remember thinking that this was strange as I bought the Vanagon from a VW dealer = (they shouldn't let go of it with a tampered emissions system = right?), but the converter showed no evidence of having been forcefully reamed out. = Since then I have seen several other posts referring to empty cat. cons. = Do Vanagons mysteriously tempt tampering or did VW actually sell them this way. Why? Was an empty converter just a place to hang an O2 sensor? Was it empty because our Vanagons are seen by the feds as = light trucks, not having to meet the same standards as passenger cars? =