It’s morning, you walk up to your car, you haven’t noticed anything unusual. You calmly get in, start the engine and are startled by a strange sound. It could be a leaky exhaust, but more than likely you’re missing a catalytic converter.
Despite the fact that car thefts are more challenging nowadays, experienced car thieves can still find methods to come up with the money. It turns out that some components – most often catalytic converters – are currently a very common target for thieves. Recently, several thefts have been reported every day and we can follow it in the media or on social networks.
How is the theft carried out?
A pair of thieves try to look out for an area that is not monitored by cameras and target a vehicle with a catalytic converter. They choose both older and new vehicles. Since the catalytic converter is easily accessible from under the chassis, they lie down under the car and, most often with the help of a cordless angle grinder, cut it off the exhaust system. If the car has a low chassis, they can jack it up. All unnoticed, without much noise and in a few dozen seconds. The paradox is that they can carry out such a theft under the windows of hundreds of apartments.
What is the reason for stealing catalytic converters?
Thieves target catalytic converters because they contain precious metals such as platinum, palladium or rhodium. They steal to order or sell catalytic converters through various bazaars. Their price varies depending on market demand, condition and manufacturer – in the order of tens to hundreds of euros.
Although the thief will get tens of euros from the sale of a stolen catalytic converter, it will cost you (if you do not have collision insurance, which also covers such cases) hundreds to thousands.
How can you protect yourself against catalytic converter theft?
There are several options to eliminate the long fingered as much as possible. The ideal is to leave your vehicle in places that are camera-sensored and try to park near a high curb where thieves have a harder time accessing it. However, most people don’t have that option and therefore the certainty that you won’t just have your catalytic converter disappear is minimal.
Some people choose to remove the catalytic converter from the car, but this is not legal in Slovakia. Others choose to weld a cage around the catalytic converter. A similar example is the reaction of Toyota, which included a protective aluminium cover as an original equipment item due to the theft of Prius catalytic converters.
However, if you don’t want to go the illegal route or interfere with the design of the exhaust system or chassis you should consider securing your vehicle with a reliable car alarm. At present, this represents the greatest certainty to prevent theft.
When making your choice, you will certainly be interested in the simplicity and functionality of use. One option is the Pandora system, which offers technology with advanced encryption and multi-element protection – all without sacrificing user convenience.
A simple bluetooth app is also available, giving you a perfect overview of your vehicle’s status and location 24/7. Thanks to the sensors, you always know what’s going on with your vehicle and can prevent, for example, the theft of the catalytic converter. In addition, there is also the option of a comfortable remote start with control of the independent heating.
