Spent the night at the GF's house and parked right in front of her bedroom window.
Woke up the next day and saw the rear of my exhaust system hanging down.

I checked where they had cut the pipe and noticed that there were marks to indicate a hand held pipe cutter/tubing cutter was used. No sawzall. Very quiet.

The local PD said there's been a rash of these.

The tow truck driver told me he did a recent pick up of a woman's car at a BART station. Outer lot. It was quitting time and several people were walking out to their cars and one by one, cars were starting and loud exhaust sound came from several cars. The tow truck driver inspected these cars and found that the thieves would not touch the cars with heat shields attached to the pipes, only the easy targets with easily accessible exposed exhaust pipes.

So when I get my truck back I am welding up some sheet metal shielding to the exhaust system. Quazi brush guards/anti-theft devices which can't hurt.

Insurance deductible: $100.

Quote from Toyota to replace exhaust system, 2-O2 sensors, associated emission control wiring: $2,000.00

Hey, it's just another excuse to drive Bebe! Like I need one.

WTF? Wow. Lame theiving bastards. What next?

shit, that sucks!

makes my glad for once my cat is right next to my manifold in the mini cooper. they'd have to f'n impact that sucker off, that is if they are 2 inches thick laying down (it's lowered and i skin roaches backs that run across the road in front of me) Otherwise it's an annoying heat source.

In texas a few years back it was tailgates and spare tires that got stolen off of pickups. Cats.... wtf? is there some fence out there that takes platinum out of cats? shit people need to get a life already.

Hey I know how you feel i just had the cat stolen off my 4Runner a few weeks ago but only cost 100 buck for a new one since it is OBD1. I hate thieves it makes me so angry inside i am waiting for them to start punching holes in gas tanks because of the way gas prices are.

Josh

They have proposed stamping / welding VIN number on cats too. Stolen cats are a serious problem due to their scrap value ... your's about $200 cash.

Those of us who buy large amounts of cats are gettin' real nervous. Average buy is north of $200,000 on the road and the sellers want cash (no traceable checks). There has been a rash of killings over both the cats and the money you have to carry.

Blame China .... It's sucking all the raw materials out of the world and driving prices thru the roof.

No, blame us for moving production of every friggen piss-ant product over there, and then expecting the slaves that make the stuff to remain slaves indefinitely. Those people got paid to make that crap at wal-mart. Now we get to deal with the cost that we should have been paying for the decades we enjoyed cheap shit from china, in a short time span.

That's like stealing the skid marks out of someones shorts, WTF!

i remember hearing about that. There is something in it that makes it valuable, and it is also annoying


on a similar note, i heard a few ytears ago about people stealing all the doors of the (then new) jeep tj wranglers.

The doors are easy to get off for any cj-yj-tj, and so people would steal em, and sell em with little effort

Meth. Damn meth-heads.

Platinum....

These comments are spot-on.

There has been a lot of this in the Sacramento area recently. The paper ran an article, said that the metals were the reason. Seems like the scrap dealers should be required to get information about the sellers in these cases.

One of my co-workers was hit. He drives a 4x4, so easy access.

Another reason to drive an older (pre catalytic converter) car.

Same thing happened to my co worker on her new 4 Runner. it was brand new too - like 2 weeks old when someone decided it needed a de-catting mod.

Zach

Close, but no cigar.

Platnium, Palladium and Rhodium.

And the scrap dealers are doing something. Anyone that is selling us scrap (of any kind) is fingerprinted, a photo of them and the material taken, a photo of them standing in front of their delivery vehicle showing license number and a copy of their drivers' license is taken. They also sign an affadavit that the material is not stolen.

Further, if we even suspect the material is hot, we refuse to purchase it.

Hmmmm valuble, but why Catalytic? Why not Dogalytic?

And people ain't made of water.....details. It's the main ingredient and most mouth breathers doan know what Palladium and Rhodium is......

Isn't The Palladium where Willie Nelson plays when he's in town?

with the

And we are ruining ourselves even more with illegal immigration. Look at what two main groups want those borders wide open - the illegal immigrants and big business. And they will tell you without cheap labor (we are a fantastic country for enslaving people for greed of the almighty dollar) that everything will sky rocket and certain jobs "won't get done".

You pay a fair wage and EVERY job will get done. It's what the market will bear, which won't be huge inflation. It will be a DECREASE IN PROFITS for the fuckers that own (i.e. wealthy stakeholders) any major home builder, restaurant chain, what's left of manufacturing in this country, etc. BUT, if a dollar can be made, laws of capitalism say someone will make that dollar, so maybe homebuilding goes back to smaller middle-class owned business directly where they keep overhead/mgmt costs down, etc and capitalize on a "smaller" profit by the fact it is larger margin in that model.

Imagine, a burgeoning of the middle class, an decrease in overall poverty and a decrease in the gap between the wealthy and the vast majority of the country (as in about 95% of the country).

but just keep in mind, if you are getting your lawn cut by fresh off boat Nguyen, your deck built by border bandit Rodriguez... YOU are the problem as well. And it is us, the middle class that bears the burden of paying for all that health care, welfare, education, blah blah because most chose to save a hundred bucks a year on lawn care by underpaying.

Because you can put a price on Catalytic. Dogalytic is priceless.

My next door neighbor got hit a while back...I had my Tacoma parked outside, but they left it alone. I park it in the garage now.

What type of business buys a CAT???
I have a few dead ones kicking around...a few hundred would be nice.
I was gonna drop them at a metal recyler with all the other scrap metal.

Rich

The company I work for now is a metals company, with recycling yards around the country. We have a new government requirement to get certain data from each person who sells scrap metal to one of our yards. This includes, in most states, Name, address, scan of drivers license, picture of license plate, pictures of all the scrap purchased, picture of vehicle, and in some cases, fingerprints. The company is spending millions to upgrade equipment and processes to meet the new standards. All info gets uploaded to a national database so the cops can track a thief from the material he sells.


Platinum and Palladium (catalytic converter contents) prices are through the roof right now. So is copper, and the thieves are targeting both new construction and foreclosures for copper "salvage". We even had one moron who was stealing copper from active power substations. He would drive a stake int the ground and throw a steel cable over the wires, then when the limiters kicked in, he would "salvage" the copper. Missed one wire on a high tension lead one night. Now he is extra crispy.

Thieves are lowlife.... no matter what they steal.

The Industrial Electrical Contractor I've been using told me that he had a break in at one of the other sites he was doing a job last summer. It was a two story Industrial building of several Suites. The power rooms for each suite were all on the bottom floor, one side by side. Some thieves broke the lock, stole his rollaways and tools, then proceeded to cut live 460VAC cables for the copper. They then broke down the sheetrock seperating the power rooms, and cut out all the newly installed copper in each room stripping the place completely bare.

People are also stealing bronze plumbing fittings from sprinkler systems in public parks here, usually where the flow-back preventers are situated in plain view above ground.

The rules have changed. Things you never thought about are all fair game.

What next, roads dug up for the Asphalt?

i saw a lady shoveling city of berkeley mulch, from the frontage road parkway, into the back of her truck the other day. Unbelievable.

We design HVAC systems. At one of the school districts we have done work for we were required to call for cages over the roof mounted equipment, and sheet metal covers over exposed refrigerant piping. This was to keep self appointed salvagers from taking the refrigerant and the copper piping. It seems that nothing is off limits when $ call.

Seriously how much money are they getting from Cats?
http://store.summitracing.com/partdetail.a...mp;autoview=sku

and

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Parts-Acces...0247649462&

???

A hit of crack is only twenty bucks...

my toyota serviceman just told me this afternoon. up to $50 per. cat.

my truck now runs quiet as ever but i couldn't bring myself to spend the night over at her place... i wouldn't be able to sleep.

i do have some scrap sheet metal which is going to be spot welded along the full length of the exhaust system this week. total+ $2,100.00 for a $50 thief profit.

A friend of mine got hit a few weeks ago at a park and ride. His Toyota Tacoma and a Nissan Titan both had the cats cutoff while they were at work. This happened during daylight hours near a busy highway.

What you linked to are the cheapest catalytics you can buy new for replacement. They are designed to last about 1 year. In the scrap market, they have a value of about $20.00 and are known as "aftermarket".

Now, you take one from a Honda, Toyota, etc .... the smallest one is worth about $150 in the scrap market. A large Mercedes (rated in 4 lb & 5 lb models) are worth about $350 - $400. A GM converter can be worth upwards of $175.

When I buy a load of mixed catalytics, approximately 2500 - 3000 pieces, the scrap total I pay is generally in the $250,000 - $300,000 range.

So much for the $20 hit ...............

Oh and Dr. Roger ... if your serviceman is selling his cats @ $50 and they ain't aftermarket, I'll buy all he has. He's gettin cheated.

Hey Ron, thanks for your input here.

Do you think a steel plate, welded onto the cat, with personal info and a statement like, "THIS CAT STOLEN FROM ROGER AT 510-555-1212. CALL POLICE IMMEDIATELY" would deter thieves?


I'm still going to weld some oversize brush guards along the entire exhaust system to make it nearly impossible unless they've got a blow torch...

The new anti theft devices are already coming on the market.

http://www.catclamp.com/catclamp.asp

It might, but it would also throw a red flag on anyone buying the cat for scrap.

Even though the Blue Meanies are cracking down as much as they can, there are those who will purchase the stolen material. One of the major catalytic recertifyers had one of their store managers arrested and prosecuted in a sting operation after reports on the street surfaced that she was actively purchasing known stolen material.

Dr. R - that sucks!
Another Toy 4x4 -cat happened on Liberty St in El Cerrito near my house.
Check this week's East Bay Express- there's a short crime update about a guy nabbed with 70 cats in a room on San Pablo Ave.
I always though those lowered trucks were stupid, maybe they are smarter than I thought.

Effers got me in Detroit (1998 4Runner Limited) on Feb 28, but what can you expect--it's DETROIT. I paid $1300 for the new exhaust, including O2 sensors at Midas.

Let us know how your armor works out..

Same thing happened at our office. One of the girls had hers taken out of her Toyota 4Runner during business hours. Fairly busy commercial/light industrial complex, right accross from COSTCO!!!!

My 914 was parked just down a ways.. left untouched - for now!

My solution to this problem.

I got a piece of scrap sheet metal and pieced together to fit nicely.
Then added additional high carbon steel (rebar) as a deterrent.
I stamped my phone number into the cat as well as a "911".
Painted red to be obvious of it's purpose.

I hope that the potential thief will see that they cannot cut the front of the cat and therefore cannot get away with it.

Only time will tell.

Man, that is so ugly it's got to work!!!

OK know were does it go after the scrap dealer buys them?

I'm hoping it scares the thieves away!

It's a big difference from this....

Cat bling.

Can you hear it? "Steal me, steal me".

Dr. Some low life relative of the guy who got your cat, actually stole the Copper

Down Spouts off a Local Church. Next will be the copper plumbing out of your

house while you sleep. Anyone know of any of these guys getting caught, and

prosecuted ,I'll bet a slap on the wrist if that! Dave

It seems to me that if these individuals were introduced to some high velocity lead, the copper theft would soon cease.

If I catch a fuchin' thief in my house trying to "liberate" something, I will deal with the problem right quick

They go to a refiner. The refiner decases the unit (takes the ceramic media out the the can) and then processes the media to extract the three metals of interest.

Ron, do you think the scrap people see or give a crap enough to see a "911" and a phone number stamped in a cat, and actually call the phone number?

Seems unlikely. But I could be wrong if the gubment is putting pressure on the scrappers.

As stated in the previous posts, the police are watching the scrap dealers and instituting rules for purchasing scrap.

Most don't want any trouble with the law and are very careful in what they buy. If the ID on a cat (yes, we look at every one of them) did not match the ID of the person bringing it in, it will be refused and / held for further investigation / the police called.

The people that are stealing them will bring them to the dock a couple at a time. This is immediately suspect, hence the photographs, fingerprinting, etc. If a cat has some sort of ID that would allow us to contact "the true owner", we would do so.

There are still the unscruplous that will buy the material, but then to off it, they have to sell it to someone like us. Refiners don't talk one or two converters ... they want a minimum of a truckload (3000+ pieces / 45K lbs).

Sting operations have been set up to test scrap buyers.

We had a visit from the Railroad Police a month or so ago. Their first question was had we bought any amount of new catalytic converters. Seems thieves were crawling up on the car transports and taking them off new cars. New catalytics throw a BIG RED Flag.

This is not limited to just catalytics. We recently held two rolls of new copper wire and two large manhole type covers made from aluminum diamond plate for 2 weeks until we found out where it was purchased and that it was indeed "scrapped". If we had been unable to verfiy it's status, our on the road buyer had been instructed that it would be loaded on his truck to be returned to where he had acquired the material.