2005 Prius making a motorcycle Noise

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Someone has stolen your Catalytic Converter

 

Agreed, sadly somebody has crawled under your car with a saw and cut out the catalytic converter. This is very expensive to repair, and for a 2005 may prove to be un-economic to repair unless you have comprehensive insurance.

My condolences.

 

Agreed. My condolences too.

 

But y are people this wicked? Even in this terrible corona virus situation? I bet you, someone from your area may have being monitoring you for a long time.
The cutting could be with a DC hacksaw..
Sorry for the loss ma. You may have to get a used one as a replacement, or get one to weld it in there.

 

What balls to lay under someones car and making a big racket while they chop off your car. Sooner or later they will roll out from under the wrong car and be staring at a pistol in there face. My nutty doggy would have heard that and went ballistic if in my driveway.
He's in charge of the security supported by Sig Sauer.

Not to mention the damage they do to the car. I bet Dxta's right they scoped it out and only do it to women. Cowardly scumbags.




Standard observation position:

 

Sorry for your loss.
Unless you want to pay some cut-rate mechanic a cut-rate price to "fix" your car on the cheap your options are to file a claim with your insurance company, or pay for an OEM replacement, which you probably already know is going to be something like $1500.

Somebody ELSE paid a mechanic that's even scummier than the ones in the dealership to fix their car on the cheap - and they paid somebody to yank the cat off of your car.
The GOOD news is that if you sell it or trade it in then they will ship it to a state that does not have laws against aftermarket catalytic converters and your car will find a new 'forever home' in somebody else's driveway or garage!

Two parting shots (pun unintended)
1. The scumbags did a darn clean job of removing your old cat and they left enough material to graft a replacement catalytic converter. See the heat shield? YOU CAN drive the car until you arrange for a repair/replacement!!

2. Take @edthefox5 comment as satire - as I'm pretty sure he meant it......especially where you live!
If you were to intentionally fire warning shots into your lawn.....and local law caught you both they would put YOU in jail and let the dude with the warm sawzall off with a written ticket.........LITERALLY.
They'd probably even let them keep the Sawzall.......

Your best call is to consider the cost/benefit of repairing your 05 and let El Fato settle accounts with the cat thieves.

Good Luck!

Seriously....you CAN drive the car for a while.

 

KBB says your car is worth less than $2k.
WITH a cat and in the 97th percentile of "cremepuffyness'

On the hoof, without a cat it's probably worth $1k if it's in pristine condition....which no 15-year-old car is.

Hope your friend doesn't get the replacement cat from the same people that took YOUR cat......

 

I'd be impressed if you got $2500 for it in the current market. Good luck!

 

Highly unlikely, but one can only wonder if there might be a correlation between the oil change, and the timely loss of the catalytic

Did you report the theft, and are there other prius nearby who may have also lost their catalytics around that time?

Though doable, a gen3 without an exhaust system sounds like a "tank", would bet the smaller gen2 does also.