Featured Sad Catalytic Converter theft news

Huh, I would have figured them for the thieves

 

I wonder if there's room to wrap some barbed wire around the exhaust ...?

 

Install a belly pan and improve aero at the same time.

 

They use a battery powered Saw-z-all with a brand new blade... Takes less than a minute and they only need to make two cuts... The metal panels that cover the underside of the car in the $500 range is best way to thwart them. Cops and others are trained to listen for metal pipe cutting sounds to determine if a crime is taking place...

 

lower the car until they can't get a jack under it

 

Jacking up a car and getting under it as quickly as possible so you can steal something is super high risk.... It's just a matter of time before in your haste you don't get your jack done right and it fails on you.

 

Yea... then they can steal the barbed wire too...

 

Air bag suspension would do this quite well... But way more expensive than buying a spare catalytic converter...

 

3/4" (9 gauge) diamond stainless expanded metal sheets 2' x 4' are available for about $150. 4' x 4' for about $240

Install it under the car, covering the cats. Use some bolts and flat washers to attach it through the floor boards. Weld the stainless to the exhaust pipes/cats. Anyone who jacks the car up and sees that is going to lower it right back down and move on to the next victim. It would take an hour under the car trying to cut it out, and one battery may not be enough.

 

3/4" inch thick seems excessive... Main thing in a good design is making sure the sawzall blade can't reach the pipes... Also would be wise to not make it too labor intensive for whoever has to do exhaust system work for you.

 

3/4" is maybe the diamond pattern spacing, and 9 gauge the thickness (before slitting and expanding I'd assume), which is 5/32". Even that seems mighty thick, maybe 12 gauge (7/64")?

 

Karma's a bitch...

 

...and then you die.

 

@Mendel Leisk recently said 3/4" is maybe the diamond pattern spacing, and 9 gauge the thickness

That is correct...

@Mendel Leisk also said.... maybe 12 gauge

preferably with buckshot

Fortunately, even with 5 gen 2s at the house, I've never run into any issues with someone messing with them. Our little Rottie makes a lot of noise when he sees a squirrel or bird in the yard and goes absolutely Cujo mode if a person approaches the house. He's broken two windows in the front of the house so far, so I actually put framed expanded metal across the inside lower half of all the main floor windows that face the front yard. Now, no matter how hard he throws himself against it, the expanded metal flexes slightly, but always keeps an air gap between itself and the glass. I haven't had a broken window since installing.

On the other hand, our Husky would probably patiently wait in total silence while someone broke into the house. As soon as they got a door or window open, she would immediately make her move. She'd run directly at them as fast as possible and then zig-zag around them to jump through the window or run out the door so she could head down the street to find one of her dog friends to go roaming with or a group of neighborhood kids to play with. As always, she would mysteriously appear on the front porch at dusk, ready for dinner and a nap.

 

The Rottie, however, might bring you home a couple new cats...

 

These types of thefts don't happen at home, they happen in cities, apartment complexes, big parking lots, basically anywhere that people doing a crime for a few minutes won't attract too much attention...

 

And salvage yards who buy them. A local 'sting' operation shutdown the buyers.

Bob Wilson

 

Yea, once homeless people think it's an easy way to $150 dollars because someone is making the rounds making offers... Here's the latest news article posted today. Homeless dude died when his cheap car jack failed while attempting to cut out a catalytic converter: Berkeley: Man killed in catalytic converter theft case id'd

 

Junkyards are only paying $60 for a cat around here. Less incentive for the trouble.