Quote Originally Posted by brutal View Post
From the description, one might expect the dealer knows it has gutted cats and can't just bolt on the OE exhaust and take a pass.

Gutted or not, AFAIK, aircare just needs to see the cats are there and have it pass OBD/sniff tests. There's lots of cars running around with gutted cats that easily pass emissions.
Except some newer cars have more than one O2 sensor and will throw a code due to decreased cat efficiency. (VAG)
Thats why I say to pull the codes and see what pops.