A FoMoCo–stamped catalytic converter is worth roughly $33 to $293 if it is a common car or manifold unit, $68 to $250 for a large truck or SUV underbody cat, and $110 to $1,166 if it is a Ford torpedo. An aftermarket unit wearing a FoMoCo look–alike stamp pays $5 to $50 and no more. The stamp is not what sets the price — the middle five characters of the part number are.
| Grade / Item | Low | High | Unit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Car / crossover (5E212) | $40 | $166 | USD/unit |
| Truck / SUV large (5E212) | $125 | $250 | USD/unit |
| Manifold cat (5G232) | $33 | $293 | USD/unit |
| European build (5E211) | $12 | $257 | USD/unit |
| Diesel (5K282) | $13 | $511 | USD/unit |
| DPF | $30 | $806 | USD/unit |
| Ford torpedo | $110 | $1,166 | USD/unit |
| Country | Typical Range | Per Tonne | Cur. |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | $50 – $450 /unit (typical OEM) | — | USD |
| Canada | C$65 – C$600 /unit | — | CAD |
| United Kingdom | £40 – £350 /unit | — | GBP |
| Germany / EU | €45 – €400 /unit | — | EUR |
| Australia | A$75 – A$650 /unit | — | AUD |
| India | ₹4,000 – ₹35,000 /unit | — | INR |
| UAE / Dubai | 180 – 1,600 AED /unit | — | AED |
What FoMoCo actually tells you
FoMoCo is just Ford Motor Company. It is cast or stamped onto thousands of Ford parts, converters included, and on its own tells a buyer almost nothing. A Fiesta cat and an F–450 cat wear the same four letters.
What pays is the part number next to it. Ford stamps a structured number on nearly every factory converter. It gives the model year, the vehicle line, and — most importantly — what kind of converter it is. Get that number to the buyer and you get graded on the real unit. Send a photo of the word FoMoCo and you get quoted as a generic domestic cat, which is the bottom of the range.
How to read a FoMoCo part number
Ford numbers come in three chunks: prefix, basic part number, suffix. Take FL3Z–5E212–C. FL3Z is the prefix. 5E212 is the basic part number. C is the suffix.
The prefix: year, vehicle line, who owns the drawing
The prefix is four characters.
- Character 1 — model year. On modern parts this is a letter or digit. F is 2015, B is 2011, D is 2013, K is 2019, L is 2020.
- Characters 2 and 3 — the vehicle line. L3 is F–150 and F–250, L2 is Explorer, C3 is Super Duty, R3 is Mustang, C2 is Econoline, M5 is the global C–platform Focus and Escape.
- Character 4 — design responsibility. A Z here means it is a Ford Division service part number — the number on the parts box. A digit or another letter means it is an engineering number, which is what is usually stamped on the converter itself.
So FL3Z–5E212–C is a 2015 F–150 service converter. BC34–5K282–DA is a 2011–program Super Duty engineering part.
Older Fords use a different scheme, where the first character is the decade of design — C for the 1960s, D for the 1970s, E for the 1980s, F for the 1990s. Anything with that pattern is old enough to grade low anyway.
The middle group: the code that sets your price
This is the part to memorise. The middle group identifies the part type. Every Ford exhaust and emissions part sits in the 5–series, and the code tells you whether you hold a gas cat, a manifold cat, or diesel aftertreatment. Those three pay completely differently.
One warning: 5F250 is a generic Ford marker that shows up on plenty of exhaust parts. It is not a value code. Ignore it and look for the real group before or after it.
The suffix: design and change level
The suffix starts at A and walks forward as Ford revises the part. On engineering numbers it is usually two letters — DA, JD, VA. Buyers use it to separate first, second and third converters in a multi–cat exhaust, and those can differ by a hundred dollars or more on a Super Duty.
The FoMoCo code families and what they pay
Published price sheets do not quote by Ford code. They quote by physical grade. So map the code family onto the grade a buyer will assign it, then read the band. Figures below are published bands as of 17–21 August 2026.
| Code family | What it is | Grades as | Published band |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5E212, 5E214, 5E242 — car and crossover | Underbody three–way cat | Domestic low to regular | $40–$75 typical; up to $166 high grade |
| 5E212 — full–size truck and SUV | Large underbody cat | Domestic large to XL | $125–$250; RRCats quotes $68–$621 across domestic high grade |
| 5G232, 5G218 | Exhaust manifold with catalyst cast in | Small breadloaf or pre–cat | $33–$293; pre–cat grades $25–$50 |
| 5E211, 5F297 — European build | Euro Ford cat, often sold as a pair | Ceramic or diesel | $12–$257 |
| 5K282 | Diesel aftertreatment — DOC, SCR, DPF | Diesel cat or DPF | Diesel $13–$511; DPF $30–$806 |
| Torpedo body, various codes | Multi–biscuit torpedo | Torpedo high grade | $110–$1,166; ScrapMonster posts $664 for torpedo high grade |
| Aftermarket, FoMoCo look–alike | Thin–wall replacement | Aftermarket | $5–$50 |
Sources disagree on the wide grades and it is worth knowing where. On Large GM and domestic high–grade categories, RRCats and Rockaway Recycling post spreads three to five times wider than ScrapMonster posts single national numbers. Treat the wide spreads as the real world and the single numbers as a midpoint.
5E212 and its neighbours — the standard cat
This is the bulk of what comes through a yard. 1F1C–5E212–BA off a Taurus, DM5Z–5E212–B off a Focus or Escape, 5C3Z–5E212–LA off a Super Duty, FL3Z–5E212–C off an F–150. Same family, wildly different money, because a Focus cat is a fraction of the volume of an F–150 cat. 5E214 and 5E242 are the same idea with the pipe attached — XL34–5E214–JD from an F–150, 2L2A–5E242–VA from an Explorer.
5G232 and 5G218 — manifold cats
These are catalysts cast into the exhaust manifold: BT4Z–5G232–C on 2011–2015 Edge, Explorer and MKX, 8A8Z–5G232–C on Fusion, YL3C–5G218–AA on Expedition. They look small and heavy because most of what you are holding is cast iron. Buyers grade them as breadloaf or pre–cat. Do not let the weight fool you into expecting a large–cat price.
5K282 — diesel aftertreatment
Power Stroke Super Duty aftertreatment lives here: BC34–5K282–DA, BC34–5K282–GA, 7C34–5K282–AA. Diesel units carry mostly platinum with little palladium and no rhodium, so they behave differently from gas cats as the market moves. Spreads are enormous — $13 at the low end for a burned–out unit, $806 for a full DPF. We cover the BC34–5K282–DA specifically in its own article.
Torpedoes
The long cylindrical Ford torpedo, common on E–series vans and older trucks, is the best–paying Ford unit by a distance. Value tracks the number of internal biscuits, and we have a separate article on it.
Model year letter codes
| Code | Year | Code | Year | Code | Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| X | 1999 | 4 | 2004 | E | 2014 |
| Y | 2000 | 7 | 2007 | F | 2015 |
| 1 | 2001 | 8 | 2008 | H | 2017 |
| 2 | 2002 | A | 2010 | K | 2019 |
| 3 | 2003 | B | 2011 | L | 2020 |
| — | — | D | 2013 | N | 2022 |
OEM versus aftermarket
This is the single biggest swing on a FoMoCo unit, and it is not close.
- Aftermarket converters carry roughly 10 percent of the platinum–group loading of a factory unit, per PMR. IndexBox puts the gap at 50 to 90 percent less PGM.
- A factory Ford cat grades $100–$250 on average. An aftermarket unit grades $5–$50.
- Aftermarket shells look newer and cleaner. That is the tell, not a selling point.
How to tell them apart: a genuine Ford unit carries a full structured part number stamped into the shell or heat shield, not printed on a sticker. Aftermarket units carry an EPA or CARB number and a brand name, often with no Ford–format code at all. Some cheap replacements do wear a FoMoCo–style stamp. If the number does not follow the four–character prefix, five–character middle, letter suffix pattern, treat it as aftermarket.
Finding the number on the unit
- Ford hides codes behind heat shields more than most makes. On some units the shield has to be cut to read the full number.
- Ford serials run 9 to 14 characters across the three chunks.
- Steel wool or a wire brush on the shell often brings up a stamp that looks gone.
- Photograph the number and a top–down shot of the whole unit. Buyers grade on both.
- Keep it intact. Gutted, rattling or hollowed units drop a grade, sometimes two.
What the metal market is doing
| Metal | Spot, 19–20 Aug 2026 | 2026 forecast range |
|---|---|---|
| Platinum | $1,793–$1,799/oz | $1,300–$1,800 |
| Palladium | $1,299–$1,312/oz | $950–$1,500 |
| Rhodium | $8,550/oz | $6,000–$9,000 |
Platinum and rhodium sit near the top of the Heraeus 2026 forecast, which is why torpedo and large truck units are holding up. Palladium is mid–range and in surplus, which caps the older high–palladium gas cats.
One caution. At least one price–by–part–number aggregator was still publishing platinum at $1,050, palladium at $1,020 and rhodium at $4,800 in August 2026 — roughly half the real market. If a site quotes converter prices alongside stale spot figures, its converter numbers are stale too. Check the metal prices before you trust the cat prices.
Prices move daily with spot. Treat every band here as a starting point, get the number off the shell, and get more than one quote.