Am I covered?

Yes, you are s.o.l. Scientifically out of luck. Bigger problem is if the pre-cat is bad you run the risk of destroying your engine (see other reply on your previous post). Nissan's response when I complained was "well, if you would have paid $1k sooner to have the pre-cat fixed, you wouldn't have killed your engine." Nice logic. We created a design flaw, didn't let anyone know about it when we became aware it was a problem, then blame the buyer for not laying out the money to repair the mistake we made.

Tarheeldavis: Thanks for your brilliant & nuanced reply to my post. "...get a second opinion from a TRUSTED (GLAD YOU USED ALL CAPS HERE-WE MIGHT HAVE NOT GOTTEN YOUR POINT) trained technician." So, in all your genius, you were able to come up with this nugget of ground-breaking and controversial advice? Were you tired of working on string theory calculations & proving fermat's theorem, so you decided to bless us with this sage advice from on top of your mountaintop abode of meditation? "Take it to a mechanic." Wow! Thrilling! Masterful! You might have changed misssims life with this advice. End sarcasm. Do you even know anything about that 2002 engine? If you did, you would know they had that design for that model year only. They knew it was a problem & should have let the public know.

the 2002 to 2006 4 cylinders are designed the same and ive seen that on any of these. it's not a desing flaw in 4 years at nissan i've only seen 3 or 4 with the cat failing ruining the engine and none were 2002. but all have one thing in common, no regular maintenance. when oil, spark plugs, ect. aren't maintained it ruins engines. the only recalls for this car are the cam/crank sensor recall, exhust HANGER PIN catching debris, and various lighting and fuel level sending sensors in tank none of which are causing a p0420 code. check for low fuel pressure, intake or exhaust leaks, bad plugs, if that's all good prob needs catalytic convertor.

98 complaints & counting: http://m.carcomplaints.com/Nissan/ Altima/2002/engine/ catalytic_converter_failed.shtml

link not working for me. is that in all the cars sold in us, can??? 98 out of millions is a pretty good track record as far as i'm concerned. and outof those 98 its either owner abuse/no maintenance or misdiagnosis 90% of the time.

You'll have to copy & paste into your browser. 98 incidents where people took the time to write & describe exactly what happened to me. Seriously, just google "altima pre- cat" you will find thousands of stories where that design destroyed the engine. Did they design the engine for that to happen intentionally? No, of course not, but it was defective & should have been repaired.