Destructive charities (was: STAPLES STORES...)

Short answer, my Lincoln dealer wanted a $1000 authorization to even look at my smog test failing Mark VII, and if it did prove to have bad cats would only replace them with Ford parts which were over a grand. Charity looked pretty good, but I EVENTUALLY found a cheapo muffler shop that replaced both cats for $187. Long answer. Knowledge is power. 4 years ago my 86 Lincoln Mark VII was running a tad funky at emissions testing time, and by a TINY margin failed one element of the smog test (HC I think). So I figure bad gas, and run the tank empty and fillup with premium, then go back for the free retest. Again it fails, but to "clean" the injectors. Well this roasted my chicken, since I was at the Mobil station getting the test where I bought all my gas, that was supposed to be keeping my engine clean. Anyway I do it, but the pretest still shows me failing and now its worse, which the mechanic says means the O2 sensors are bad and need $250 of replacing, and much more expensive it could need cats for $700. Gotta be someplace cheaper, so I hunt up a gas station that buys just Mark VII cars and fixes and parts them out. For $200 he agrees on the phone to sell me the whole front end of the exhaust system, but when I arrive that doesn't include the O2 sensors, or a gaurantee they work (ie will pass the test). Eventually the guy talks me into $30 worth of trying some "adjustments", but he actually runs a "real" smog test to check his results, which failed miserably, and due to the hook up of his test rig to the DMV my car is permanently classified as a GROSS POLLUTER requiring special testing on all future smog tests. <surprizingly the fellow is still alive> (mostly due to me not knowing how screwed I was until later) Finally, after I have well passed the license renewal date and have a whopper penalty, I go to a better mechanic and he assures me the next step are O2 sensors, then cats, and I pop for the O2, and after that fails to fix, I hunt down some cheap cats and ouila, everything is perfect, except its a gross polluter on the license for life even though it measures like new. The ticket my wife got for expired tags was a real thrill too.