Exceptionally cheap catalytiv converter theft deterrant...

What police report? What TV reporter? I'm not seeing evidence that either group is sufficiently interested in this issue to be a primary concern to the thieves. Both police and reporters have much higher priorities than cat thieves right now. And cat thieves have higher risk of getting caught by an angry car owner or neighbor armed with a gun / ax / tire iron / another vehicle to run them over, than by police or reporters.

Honest scrap dealers are not the only available markets for cat thieves to sell their wares.

 

A similar approach to this issue could be taken from the Amazon poop bomb packAge thief special.

Im sure they would love glitter bombs and human feces flying in their face when they go to hack a cat

 

So painting it orange isn't going to help if thieves prefer Prius cats because they are larger and have more metals inside.

I don't keep my Big Gulp cup after I drink the Coke!

 

You can always repaint the cat conv over the orange paint with the color black and no one would know it was orange before.

Disclaimer- this reply may not apply in all situations.

 

I've seen the cable style protectors, has anyone made a tension release device that would trigger pepper spray? Plenty of space for a large reservoir of pepper spray around the cat, large enough to provide continuous spray for several minutes! Very few people would continue trying to hack through to the cat when covered with pepper spray.

 

Thieves are after the precious metals inside the cat. They could care less what color it is.Theirs no market for seling the cat.

if your really worried just buy one of the plates I posted. they have anti theft hardware too.

 

So this would be trying to deceive thieves into believing that it might be riskier to transport and sell stolen cats. It might work on some beginner thieves who haven't yet scouted out a suitable fence to take the cats, but not on any organized rings such as has seriously depleted the London area of Prius cats.

 

great and cheap idea - thanks for posting the police videos too. Where did you get stickers ?
Also licence plate etching with a dremel should be pretty easy as well.

For gen3 looks like you HAVE to remove the front bolts as there isn't a place to easily cut (unlike gen2 if you get just 1 cat) so wondering if the security bolt as seen here should also be added on the cheap... anybody found those ?

 

Setting ethics aside for a bit, virtually all of the cat thefts happen in places where (believe it or not!!) there ARE Castle Doctrine protections....
Does California follow the Castle doctrine? (Penal Code 198.5)

HOWEVER (comma!!!)
These protections do NOT in ANY WAY apply to catalytic converter theft, legally.
Even in red states, a DA is going to have you fitted for custodial apparel if you pop-rivet somebody to your lawn or street for attempting to steal a part off of a 10 year old car.

If you live in a less oppressive state, one can (and some posters in this forum HAVE ) placed aimed warning shots near enough to cause an immediate cessation of the unwanted activity.
Even this must be done with great care, because a loosed round is the responsibility of the person who fired it.

100 percent correct.

Katko v. Briney involved a booby-trapped farmhouse where a 20-gauge shotgun was specifically rigged to injure rather than kill - and it's a GOOD precedent.
In this context it would probably apply more directly to my idea of using an electric fence charger to deter cat theft....

FUN FACT:
Marvin Katko (the injured burglar) had his OWN house broken into after the case.
Because......Karma.

 

Can anyone confirm that those 14mm bolts really need to come out during a theft? Seems a little odd for a cat thief to use non-destructive tools. Could it be easily bypassed using a sawzall if the bolts don't come out?

If it really is a commonly used step, then that seems like a great thing to add to the lines of defense.

Personally, I would not go as far as getting security bolts like the wheel locks - too difficult for me. But if they're expecting a 14mm and I can easily swap it to a 17mm hex head with the same (M10?) threads, that would be very easy for me, and might throw off the thief. While I'm there, covering the bolt head in epoxy might similarly frustrate the thief enough to make them give up. Yet, if I ever needed to remove the cat myself, it would be slightly delayed, but definitely possible.