Does anyone know the serial numbers on the cats for these cars? Not a biggie, just don't want to crawl under it. Apparently the market price at the recyclers is peaking right now so I want to get a price quote, but I need those serial numbers, one for each cat. IIRC, one is EA9?
I see you are wanting to sell it for recycle. If it is good it may be worth mor to sell it as a working unit. People steal them frequently
I have been trying to sell them to owners for years. It's a tough market. But I also hang on to them waiting for the precious metals market to go up. They have a book value to me of about $700. Based on the offers I'm getting on my ads from the recyclers, I'm thinking they're worth close to $900 now.
This is indeed true. No one buys old, used catalytic converters, even when OE, and especially not when already stolen once. The true value of the three rare earth metals inside are only appreciated by special vendors that know/follow the value changes of those metals. They have risen astronomically last five years. The older versions on gen2 04-06 have a higher value due to almost excessive amounts of those precious elements. I do wonder if serial number is the correct term though, that term should indicate uniqueness. Likely more like version/model identifier, you just will have to crawl and likely use some Rockwell/scotcbrite to rub it to visibility.
No one would buy them stolen for re-use because the thieves cut the cat off behind the exhaust manifold flange and again in front of the resonator. That front cut would be hard to weld back. But yeah, no one buys them much at all - I've only sold 3 in 4 years. I talk anyone in a non-CARB state out of buying, and I tell the CARB state owners to have two exhausts - one CARB-compliant for when you have inspections, and a second, non-CARB for your daily driver.
That’s not very hard to weld though (exhaust being the number one welding target generally), but I would agree. However, when I sold my OE 2005 cat the purchaser wished for this cut off, since they naturally don’t care about the initial purpose, they pillage the rare earth only…
I don't say difficult to weld because of the metal type. It's difficult because the thieves struggle to make that upper cut at the manifold - it's harder to access, and the pipe flares out and angles upwards to the manifold. From all the ones I've seen, their cut is angled and usually jagged. You can see in the pic the difference in the pipe connecting the back cat to the resonator, where they make one cut (very easy and clean), to the pipe between the front cat and the manifold flange; and the way the entire pipe angles up (it's off the ground and the back is laying on the ground).
Well, I guessed wrong. Thought logically rather than considering the corruption of the market. The first quote I've received RRcats, based on the part numbers Jakob provided, was $763 for both cats. That is about the same price I got a couple of years ago when platinum, rhodium and palladium were less than half their current prices. It's way less than these cats went for in 2022, when metal prices were lower than today. Logically, that makes no sense, until you understand, I expect, that after the peak theft period in 2022, and after many states passed new laws regulating the resell of cats, the number of buyers went way down. Google used to return many buyers when searched. Now, it's RRcats and almost no one else except local middlemen, from what I see. However, I've not been able to get a quote yet from my buyer here in Texas, PGM. They're closed for the holidays until Monday. RR rep did say Gen1s cats aren't all the same though. Maybe mine have different numbers than Jakob's.
