Pulled over for rejected sticker.?

I don't know what the officer meant. It IS illegal to drive the car until it is fixed.

he gave you a warning he wont book you on an offence , not the car getting a sticker , you cant drive the car till it is fixed and they remove the sticker , a warning but no fine .

First off "if it was not an expensive fix" is A RED FLAG then why didn't the seller do it and add a couple hundred to the price tag of the car? He knows in order to sell it there will be negotiations, so it will look as though he is losing money by selling it to you "UNDER the initial ASKING price" He was figuring with that loss so he still got his money that he initially wanted. & you are happy because you got it for lower than the ask price.

.  As soon as "something" is wrong the seller has to take off $1000 just to get people interested to "look".

.  So when they say "cheap fix" you know they is lying.

Lying is legal...call it an exaggeration of the truth. This is sales, be it a car, a house , a plane, etc.

 Used car lots do it by saying "I am not a mechanic but I heard it is a minor cost" which is getting the salesman off the hook for lying. "But look, almost new rubber, & clean interior"...(a deflection to a different topic).Any ways you bought his lie. So it is "history"

. So, from what I know about Cats.  When they fail they start to make a rattling sound like a couple of rocks in a metal soup can and you shake the can so it rattles.  It is very loud...to people on the street.  To the person in the car who has on his ghetto blaster to full volume - he won't hear the noise.  Shut off the radio and open the side window and listen while you drive down the road. Especially down a street of parked cars or cement wall and if you hear a rattle, it is your cat..  You do not need an OEM cat., a "jobber" cat will do. Costs much less.  A muffler shop knows about jobber cats and THEY ARE THE ONES that cut out the old and WELD on the new.

Intake Manifolds are made out of cast iron so they are not "BAD" (unless someone took a sledgehammer and smashed the pss out of yours. (not likely) though the manifold gasket underneath might be bad(also highly unlikely) He is detecting a vacuum leak somewhere. Most likely not the manifold but the rubber hoses.    (do this work with the engine off)

.  See those thin black(most time) rubber hoses on top of the motor?  Those are vacuum hoses. They suck air.   Pull an end off that is nearest to the motor.  Look at the end of the hose .  it should be a perfect "o". The edge of the circle should not have any cracks in it.  Now between your thumb and pointer finger grab the hose close to the end and squeeze it.   It is rubber. you should be able to close that"o" to a "ll". lf  the rubber hose remains perfectly round or cracks around the top lip that hose is "cooked". It ain't got no rubbery elasticity in it no more. Kind of like socks that don't stay up no more as it does not grab the leg.

 .  So if you can make the hose routing more direct and cut off 3/4" to 1" off the end of the rubber hose and squeeze it again.  If it squeezes closed (keyboard does not make it tighter than "ll' and does not crack then you still got good hose you can reconnect up.  If the other end of the hose goes to a gizmo on the fender then that end is not cooked so leave it alone.  Usually there is more than one vacuum hose connected to the intake manifold. Some cars have 4.

.   This MAY BE YOUR ONLY PROBLEM.  Your car is "sucking wind"   There used to be one vacuum hose that went to the distributor. Maybe they still have it. I don't see the newest cars all the time. They do not need repair.  If your car has 10 or 15,20 "and beyond"-rubber ages first.   

.  You will notice that the hose slid off easily (like a worn out sock) but now that the fresh new end is available it hardly fits on.  A bit of spit on the hose will lubricate that to slide it on.     

So, your repair may require you whipping out your sharp knife and do a bread slice cut to the end of some hoses and reattach them costing you nothing.

If you need a new length of hose, take off the section you need and carry to a NAPA auto parts store and show them and tell them make of car.  Metric sizes are different.  They at NAPA know which hose it is. and they will charge you by the foot so you want a piece longer.  You brought in a short piece so you want MORE.  Cost maybe $3.00?

Change that stuff and restart car and see if O2 sensor comes on.   If it does get out of the idling car and take off the gas cap and put it on tightly.  Go back into car and check to see if the light went off.   If not shut off engine and restart.  Is light on?

Then it is O2 sensor which is down by the Cat.

As to the way the cop said it means you can drive it; but do get it done soon.   I would drive it, but that is me, & I am a "Gambling Man"  The chance of me running into the same cop again is pretty slim.  I know I will get warned again.

Meanwhile I have been doing what I have been doing to get it fixed as cheap as possible (nipping the hose is cheap)

Sorry for the long write as I looked at the Problem first and how to fix it. It's what I do.

35+year mechanic.

Let you off that time with a warning, means don't get caught again. That means parking until you fix it and pass inspection. Too bad you bought a broken car- that's sad, but that is what I call, buying someone else's problems. Shop for a reasonable mechanic. Certain cars are prone to breaking down that way. It's pretty hard to know the weakness of every model made, but there is a lot of information available. Take a look at what was said about your car by others who have the same model: https://www.carcomplaints.com/

You know, looking back if the only problem with the car you bought was an 02 sensor, the previous owner would have fixed it.  You might want to keep that in mind for future reference.

Not sure how this "rejected inspection sticker" stuff works in your area.. But if it's an obvious sticker on your car, you will get pulled over again.  In my area that would issue a "fix-it" ticket which would be satisfied by bringing receipts or bill of sale to court, usually by a specific date.  Did he give you a written warning or a verbal warning?  A verbal warning probably means that you don't have an immediate legal issue.

Your seller obviously lied to you.. They had to know the bad O2 sensor was an indicator of a bad catalytic converter.. Even if it was a misinformed owner, there were other symptoms.

You can drive around, but not without consequence.. One of which driving with a dysfunctional catalytic converter is damaging to your engine.. Don't know what' wrong with the intake manifold that diagnosis doesn't seem likely unless maybe they were referring to air leaks in the manifolds attachment.  That would be quite likely & maybe the root cause of your mechanical issues.

Seems you're somewhat of an idiot. The idiot light, meaning the CEL, would have been illuminated. This would have been a sign to me to just walk away but you bought it anyhow. Either get it fixed or junk it. If you drive it and get pulled over again. you can't afford the ticket

Keep driving it - not  safety hazard - I would go to court in a heartbeat if I was given a stupid ticket for driving with a failed emissions test. Now if the rejection window has passed all bets are off. Again NOT a safety hazard to you or anyone else

If they pull you over for it again, they will see the warning, and you'll get a ticket this time. State law is different in this area. In my state, they can't sell a car that will not pass inspection. If you can;t pass an inspection, they slap a failed sticker on it, and you have x amount of days to have it fixed, or you can't drive it. If you know it won;t pass, you are suppose to get the inspection anyways to get one of those failed ones. Forces one to act.

He was understanding, the next officer may not be.  Drive at your own risk.