Recycler confirms: Prius Catalytic Converters have zero precious metals

then why are people stealing them, and why are they willing to pay so much for them?

 

Still, OP’s story sounds like a great urban myth, worth nurturing. As long as it’s not “outed”... Ah, whoops.

 

Maybe depends on who you ask. Here is an excerpt from WSJ. I didn't read the whole article because of the paywall.

Thieves Mine Catalytic Converters for Metal More Valuable Than Gold - WSJ

There are about two grams of harvestable palladium in a Toyota Prius converter, which can fetch up to around $450 at scrapyards, according to an autos scrap specialist at European Metal Recycling, a U.K. company. ​

 

They are clearly not experts, they're scammers who think you're gonna be fooled into giving them a $1k for free... There's endless posts on here detailing the value of cats for over $1K as scrap alone. And people outside of California can sell their used cat on Ebay to people in California for as high as $1400.

I created a thread to track all this info here: Prius Cat Theft Tracking | PriusChat

To your specific value question this is the info in the first post of that thread that's most relevant:

"In terms of precious metal value, as of January 2021 here's a quote that I updated with the latest market prices: The platinum, palladium and rhodium are the three precious metals in the catalytic converters. The earlier converters had more precious metals where today most vehicles have multiple converters that have less rare metals in them. The second generation Prius has 6 grams of precious metals (about 2 grams each). Platinum is worth about $35 a gram, palladium is worth about $76 a gram and rhodium is about $600 a gram. So instead of destroying the earth like they have been, it's cheaper to remove it from catalytic converters that aren't used anymore (or stolen)."

 

And you believe "Tom C."?

 

Full article: Thieves Mine Catalytic Converters for Metal More Valuable Than Gold - WSJ

 

Normally they contain either Platinum or Palladium.
Until recently Palladium was much lower cost but I believe Palladium had a big price spike up a couple years ago. I don't know if Palladium is as easy to recycle as Platinum.

 

This is pretty funny, considering RRCats offered me $425 for the EA6 and $688 for the GD6 in January.
The resonator is just a steel body and is worthless. I would bet that's all they looked at.

But, if you want, I'll give you $100 each for the EA6 and GD3. Cash money.