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- Jul 19, 2021
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I hate a thief! I feel fortunate in that I live in a very low crime area and my vehicles are locked in the garage at night.
My catalytic converter was stolen
- Thread starter mclasser
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If you're handy, you can build your own for wayyy cheaper. On my tundra I built a plate that protects all 4 cats. 3/16 steel (I go offroading alot) only used an angle grinder, welder, and drill. Bought a sheet of 4x8 plate for around 300 bucks. Maybe another 50 in cutting wheels and paint (had a 4x4 plate leftover for other projects). It's a single piece (aftermarket are 2 piece construction), 4ft long, so it's pretty heavy, but helps even further with cat protection. I need a floor jack to install it, around 150lbs+
What happened to your gas mileage afterwards? Probably not too much of a difference but jeez, engineers spend millions shaving off a few pounds here and there and there you go willy nilly just randomly adding 150 pounds...
In places like CA, unless loss prevention has a security or firearms permit for non-law enforcement, LP can only sit idly by.
I got decatted last weekend. The crooks are stealing angle grinders from Home Depot or Lowe’s. As much as I believe in clean air, I’m thinking of driving to Nevada or Oregon to find a shop who can make a “test” pipe for me.
Until the OEs stop the “security by obscurity” practice, they’ll steal EVs too. It’ll be harder - it’ll involve knowledge of RF, programming languages(ideally Python and C++/C#) and cryptography.
You are probably right.
Unless the laws have changed VERY recently rrcats.com will pay you for it. Send them a pic, they give you an offer. Over $175 and they pay the shipping. They PayPal you. They require a copy of your driver's license.
Converterguys in VT is another one and they mail a check. I switched to rrcats after converterguys annoyed me for a reason I won't bother explaining
Tundras get bad mileage no matter what. When I got the truck I was getting around 13mpg. Now with all my skid plates, bumper, winch, 35" tires, lift, I'm at around 11-12mpg with a heavy foot. Gonna re gear soon so that'll help bump it back up.
Legislation is useless without enforcement. It's a matter of priorities.
Legislation has to be in place before enforcement can happen. The other way around doesn't work. "You're under arrest for... breaking a law that doesn't exist..."
My point is that it's already illegal to steal and buy stolen catalytic converters. Adding more laws isn't going to magically solve a problem when existing laws which already address the problem aren't a priority in terms of enforcement.
It's only illegal to buy stolen catalytic converters if it can be proven that the purchaser knows they're stolen. In the absence of some kind of reverse-onus requirement for proof to the contrary, the scrap yard simply relies on plausible deniability. Who is to say the scab-covered seller with a shopping cart full of catalytic converters isn't simply bringing in scrap from his prosperous automotive shop? It's a ridiculous excuse to anyone with common sense, but that's the legal system we have. Therefore, additional legislation is needed in order to force the purchaser to be more diligent in determining the source of the catalytic converters, the identity of the seller, etc. With that in place, it's very straightforward to conduct enforcement - send someone from the police department/bylaw enforcement entity/etc. (out of uniform, obviously) into the scrap yard with a catalytic converter to test the process and enforce accordingly.
As for the thief's end - the likelihood of catching a theft in progress is not great. In the event someone is caught stealing a cat or two, that's not going to keep them out of commission for long.
Sorry to hear this happened. Let's hope manufacturers start to design cars with cats that are protected from this sort of theft by better shielding.
There seems to be something wrong in the financial model given the prices some of these yards pay for the converters vs what you can buy new ones for
3" inch Universal Catalytic Cat Converter High Flow Stainless Steel Weld-on USA | eBay
1x universal catalytic converter. Body Material: 409 Stainless Steel. It is high corrosion and wear resistance. Body Size: 4" /10.16cm Round. Substrate material: Ceramic.
www.ebay.com
Well, it does buy a decent bit of heroin(if the fentanyl added doesn’t kill you) or crack.There seems to be something wrong in the financial model given the prices some of these yards pay for the converters vs what you can buy new ones for
3" inch Universal Catalytic Cat Converter High Flow Stainless Steel Weld-on USA | eBay
1x universal catalytic converter. Body Material: 409 Stainless Steel. It is high corrosion and wear resistance. Body Size: 4" /10.16cm Round. Substrate material: Ceramic.www.ebay.com
Depending on the state the buyers of catalytic converters must retain ID and/or fingerprints of the seller. Scrapyards are like pawn shops and FFL's. They get in trouble if they don't maintain the required records. That requires enforcement by LEO's (ie Inspections). If the scrapyards aren't getting inspected then it doesn't matter how many laws you have on the books. This doesn't even address the backyard rackets were items bypass scrapyards entirely and are aggregated/transported by organized crime into Mexico.
The universal ones are nothing like the factory ones. The factory ones have to be designed to last the life of the car and hence they have a lot more precious metals. Those aftermarket ones only have to last 5 years as the EPA figured that by the time you need a new one, it's been a long time and maybe you only need it for another 5 years before the car gets junked. As for that universal one, probably has the least amount of precious metals and not even sure if it would pass emissions.There seems to be something wrong in the financial model given the prices some of these yards pay for the converters vs what you can buy new ones for
3" inch Universal Catalytic Cat Converter High Flow Stainless Steel Weld-on USA | eBay
1x universal catalytic converter. Body Material: 409 Stainless Steel. It is high corrosion and wear resistance. Body Size: 4" /10.16cm Round. Substrate material: Ceramic.www.ebay.com
It almost makes sense to consider the design of the vehicle if you live in an area where CC's get stolen regularly.
My Nissans for example. I had to remove the top half of the heat shield on my daughter's 2015 Nissan Versa a few weeks ago. The bottom half rotted off a year or so ago. Given where this manifold mounted CC is positioned, my hands looked like I got in a fight with a wild cat by the time I got that shield out of there. They're packed up in there on our 2019 Nissan Pathfinder as well. There is a downstream CC on both vehicles w/ no O2 sensor downstream of it. Not sure if those get stolen or not.
My Nissans for example. I had to remove the top half of the heat shield on my daughter's 2015 Nissan Versa a few weeks ago. The bottom half rotted off a year or so ago. Given where this manifold mounted CC is positioned, my hands looked like I got in a fight with a wild cat by the time I got that shield out of there. They're packed up in there on our 2019 Nissan Pathfinder as well. There is a downstream CC on both vehicles w/ no O2 sensor downstream of it. Not sure if those get stolen or not.
The issue is a lack of enforcement of existing laws.
In before the lock!
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