i heard about this from family up in sacramento and thought it was just an isolated incident but my wife work place just sent an email out

TO ALL TENANTS




Last Friday, two cars had their Catalytic Converters cut off of their cars in the parking lot. While this may sound strange, it has actually become quite a common theft in San Diego. The parts contain valuable metals which the thieves sell for about $200. The cars that are targeted are SUVs, Toyota 4 Runners and Nissan Trucks.



These thefts occurred in the middle of the afternoon. The thief crawls under the car and removes the part in about 5-10 minutes. I have spoken with other property managers in San Diego and they are experiencing this in many other parking lots (particularly structured parking lots).



I spoke with our security camera vendor and given the size of the lot it would require an extensive network of cameras to provide enough coverage to monitor and identify any potential thefts. The best defense is probably the 'neighborhood watch' approach.



If you see any suspicious vehicles or activities in the parking lot, PLEASE REPORT THEM TO THE POLICE IMMEDIATELY and then notify us as well.



Thank you for your vigilance.

Stealing them for the platinum, right?!

Weird...

~ Zire

This has happened a few times that I know of where I'm from in Kansas City.

This is happening all over where we are. There are a ton of scrap yards around here willing to pay top dollar for metal. We have people knocking on our doors all the time asking for metal they can haul away for us...like we have a huge pile sitting behind the barn!??

I received a similar notice from my workplace last month about our parking garage in Falls Church, VA (DC area). How pissed (and confused) would you be if you jumped in the Mada after your cat converter was stolen?

Out here the big theft item is copper wiring. It gets stolen from the houses under construction. I hear it's all going over to China at this point to support their building needs.
Ct..

yea it is happening everywhere i had already fix two vehicles with this problem and they are suvs

Thats interesting I have never heard of that.

This is nuts! It's as if there is some underground secretive black market ring of catalytic converter thefts that I had no idea about....I better go check mine now.:rolleyes:

yah! my co worker that i carpool with got his cat stolen parked on a park and ride parking lot...when i dropped him off to his car and started his tacoma the exhaust were loud we looked underneath and sure enuff the cat was gone!!

Is this a West Coast thing!?:eek:

Is this a West Coast thing!?:eek:
No, it's everywhere. Monday, I was told it's happening here too. The old Nissan hardbody trucks are getting hit hard.

This is nuts! It's as if there is some underground secretive black market ring of catalytic converter thefts that I had no idea about....I better go check mine now.:rolleyes:
You don't have to check. It'll be loud as hell if it's missing!

Is this a West Coast thing!?:eek:
just saw it on the 10pm news this evening. unfortunately, its happening in several parts of Long Island; the majority in car dealership lots.

we just finished a subaru motor swap and the new motor came with a new cat pipe. so we had the old one to though away. we called our local metal recycler and he paid us $100 for 2 very small cats. we asked him how much for a big suv cat. he said 150-200............ OMG! no wonder why thieves are going nuts for them. 10mins of work for 100-200 dollars. that's better than most peoples daily paychecks. if ur vehicle sits out it will be at risk. I can't see anyway to stop this. we have a pipe cutter at the shop that is for tight spots. makes no noise and causes no noticeable vibration. and will cut through a pipe in a couple minutes. I need to come up with a solution for protection. Off the top of my head you could hook up ur aftermarket alarm to the section of exhaust pipe behind the cat. when the ground goes away, the alarm would go off.. only problem is that at that point the exhaust is already cut..... I will work on some ideas... maybe a baseball bat and a few nights in the truck will be a good solution.

I read the first post and kept waiting for the punch line. I hadn't heard about this. I'm hoping that I am far enough away from Boston to avoid any problems like this. Now I am even more motivated to get my FID card.

They steal them for the small amount of platinum that is in the cats. The price of platinum has doubled in the last few months, so that is why they steal them.

yup yup happened too many times around here.........they are quick and easy to steal and they sell em for a good amount

Overnight Tuesday the cat was cut off my dads 1986 Toyota 4WD PU in San Mateo, CA. Local police said it's pretty rampant. I knew older 4Runners were getting hit hard, but now it appears just about any vehicle someone can crawl under is being targeted if there is easy access to the cat.

shame our mada's arnt manual. leave it in gear, see someone under your truck, press the remote start and call 911.

Thievin bar stewards, they rob anythin these days

I know I'm a bit late chiming in, but believe it or not the day this thread started someone stole my cat off of my 96 4runner. $1000 later I was back on the road. My problem was this, in CA I have one of 2 year 4runners that are required to have a factory cat. On the 96 & 97 V6 4runner have nor C.A.R.B. approved aftermarker cats available. Here's the kicker, the same year Tacomas and T-100s with the exact same motor set have a C.A.R.B. approved aftermarket cat. Despite having the exact same set up, C.A.R.B. requires all models to be tested, and of course no company does not want to pay for the testing on the 96 & 97 4runners.

I read the first post and kept waiting for the punch line. I hadn't heard about this.
Me too! Damn this stinks.