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Catalytic Converter Theft
- VBprogrammer 5y agoI don't quite understand why the authorities can't hit these guys in the supply line. Make it impossible to shift a bare catalytic converter by cracking down on scrap merchants who would be buying them.
- jl6 5y agoThey’re melted down and the result is pure untraceable metal. Rhodium vendors can’t be common though. What’s the story the fences give? “This is all from my small-scale family rhodium mine”?
- janekm 5y agoSmall-scale / illegal mines are a big issue in China and India, so I suppose it can be commingled into that chain: https://e360.yale.edu/features/china-wrestles-with-the-toxic-aftermath-of-rare-earth-mining https://e360.yale.edu/features/china-wrestles-with-the-toxic...
- jeffreyrogers 5y agoMost platinum group metals come from Africa. Not that the transparency is any better there.
- 123pie123 5y agoin the uk there are laws requiring logs and proof of identity when trading scrap metal. I suspect with Catalytic Converter thefts, the CATs are small enough and light enough to be shipped abroad
- mPReDiToR 5y agoIn my city (YO1) we had a gang of Eastern Europeans committing this crime regularly and in quantity. They were eventually caught with container loads of cat's on their way to Europe.
- kube-system 5y agoThese laws are common in the US too.
- iammisc 5y agoSame in Oregon. I was on a grand jury here and metal dealing without paperwork is a felony. I asked the DA and he said this is why
- londons_explore 5y agoRhodium is so valuable you can fit tens of millions of dollars of it in a suitcase. And then you sell it to an actual rhodium mine who just so happens to be particularly productive that month.
- dragontamer 5y ago> And then you sell it to an actual rhodium mine who just so happens to be particularly productive that month. Surely its easier to keep an eye on all rhodium mines, rather than trying to keep an eye on all scrap metal yards.
- GLGirty 5y agoYes the only thing in the way is a huge international lobby industry that pays politicians to turn a blind eye to systemic labour and environmental exploitation.
- VBprogrammer 5y agoI haven't looked into it in detail but I would be very surprised if this process was as simple as melting down some stolen lead flashing, surely it isn't the kind of thing you can do with a camping stove and an old pot? There must be limited facilities with the ability to extract and purify the rhodium content.
- newguy886 5y agoI could. But not with a camping stove and I may have to feed some additional oxygen. But yes, doable in your backyard
- vkou 5y ago> I don't quite understand why the authorities can't hit these guys in the supply line. Make it impossible to shift a bare catalytic converter by cracking down on scrap merchants who would be buying them. For the same reason that they don't shut down the pawn shops buying stolen goods right across the street from the payday loan place. Because it requires actual police work, and because the people running them are 'local businessmen' with pull.
- bluedino 5y agoThe local metal scrapyards are far too lenient. They don’t bat an eye at someone bringing in stolen air conditioning condensers (they can even be brand new) You should have to have the tittle for the car to bring a converter in, since it’s a federal offense to remove them.
- kube-system 5y agoThen how would we expect a legitimate mechanic to replace one?
- emodendroket 5y agoWhy would the mechanic need to sell it to a scrapyard?
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoSo it doesn't clutter up the shop. The same reason they scrap the mountains of other used non-working parts they generate.
- giarc 5y agoI wonder if most shops buy their parts from a distributor who takes them back, most often called a "core charge".
- emodendroket 5y agoSeems like it would be a way to make such regulation work if so.
- bluedino 5y agoThen they can show their mechanic's license. There's no reason for Joe off the street to come in with a backpack full of these things. Especially ones that are brand new. Here's 20 stolen from a dealership the other night - https://abc13.com/la-porte-car-dealership-theft-catalytic-converter-converters-value/10821127/ https://abc13.com/la-porte-car-dealership-theft-catalytic-co...
- codegrappler 5y agoThis happened to me. Twice within a few weeks. Parked in a train commuter lot. I eventually had the mechanic screw some steel mesh to the bottom of my pickup to deter the thieves. Thankfully I kept comprehensive insurance on my vehicle so the out of pocket expense was $50. The insurance company did call to investigate the second time because they thought I was in on it.
- skt5 5y ago> Thankfully I kept comprehensive insurance on my vehicle so the out of pocket expense was $50. Hopefully the claim doesn't cause your premiums to increase in a meaningful way at renewal time.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago>Hopefully the claim doesn't cause your premiums to increase in a meaningful way at renewal time. Two theft claims won't raise his premiums. The other two thousand thefts in the general vicinity will.
- bananapizza 5y agoYou’re obviously a white supremacist and racist. If you are not on the side of defunding the police, you are on the wrong side of history and probably harbor sympathies toward neo-Nazis, if you aren’t already a full blown one yourself. Maybe have some compassion for once in your life, some people NEED to steal catalytic converters because of systemic racism and you should feel bad about wanting to have basic norms of law and order upheld. s/
- ehvatum 5y agoSadly, this really is the Bay Area administrative position on the matter.
- bananapizza 5y agoIt is indeed, to all of our detriment in my opinion. Won’t stop the HN downvote brigade from attempting to quickly hide it to avoid having to address it, though. Edit, original comment below. It’s very interesting, and to me, very telling, that HN seems to reach for censorship quicker than good-faith refutation of the core argument. Which here is simply that we have in fact lost the ability to enforce law in many areas, with a post hoc layer of rationalization bolted on, here stated sarcastically and labeled explicitly as such so as not to be interpreted in bad faith. Maybe someone could take the argument at its strongest and refute it? Naah, just flag it. You’re obviously a white supremacist and racist. If you are not on the side of defunding the police, you are on the wrong side of history and probably harbor sympathies toward neo-Nazis, if you aren’t already a full blown one yourself. Maybe have some compassion for once in your life, some people NEED to steal catalytic converters because of systemic racism and you should feel bad about wanting to have basic norms of law and order upheld. s/
- GonzaloQuero 5y agoYou're making a mockery of the talking points about defunding the police, then asking people to actually spend time debating you. Please, reconsider the way you argue about things.
- blinkingled 5y agoEasy to install shields like this one from catshield https://catshield.com/ https://catshield.com/ can be a somewhat effective deterrent given the thieves have to be able to remove it quickly without making noise. Also hybrids are more targeted for cat theft because they have more of the metals than normal cars to compensate for frequent engine stops and starts from cold.
- skt5 5y agoParking in a strategic location (ex: on a hill, etc.) that makes it harder to get under the vehicle or jack it up might help too.
- 1-6 5y agoNever thought of that, sounds like a good idea if you live in San Francisco.
- culopatin 5y agoI don’t understand how this would prevent someone with an angle grinder from cutting through it anyway. Especially the aluminum ones
- blinkingled 5y agoGrinding metal makes noise and attracts attention. It's not a solution rather a deterrent to make it harder for the thieves to get to the cat without special tools.
- 1-6 5y agoI was debating whether I wanted to add unnecessary holes to the bottom chassis. I wish I had done so.
- l320093jj 5y agoOur catalytic converter was stolen a few months ago. It was strange because we were parked in front of a government building -- library and courthouse -- and were only inside for about 15 minutes, in the afternoon. Came outside and the car sounded like the muffler was missing, or like I was driving an old tank. Our new car came with installation of a catshield. When talking to various autobody places, they were skeptical it would matter because if they'd cut out the catalytic converter, they could just cut out the shield. It would be nice to see if they had data on this, but I haven't seen any (I even asked our insurance agency if they knew of any analyses on it but they said they didn't).
- skt5 5y agoDo catalytic converters have the VIN etched on it like other vehicle parts do?
- worewood 5y agoI don't see how this could deter the theft, as they are cut open and the shell is discarded anyway
- skt5 5y agoYeah - the shell / heat shield would be discarded but I wonder if having the VIN on the actual converter somewhere would deter theft.
- kube-system 5y agoNo, the VIN is usually only put on permanent parts of a vehicle. Catalytic converters usually last a very long time but can eventually wear out.
- skt5 5y agoWhat's is considered a permanent part of a vehicle? It seems like there are some people etching the VIN on the heat shield but I don't see any evidence of that deterring thefts.
- kube-system 5y agoI mean “permanent” in a general sense. It varies by manufacturer. For most common cars, manufacturers put the VIN on a few places on the frame of the vehicle.
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- throwaway0a5e 5y agoCat theft would be a $200 problem ($50 for the cat, $150 for someone to put it in there) on the order of a cracked windshield instead of a $2k problem if CARB would pull its head out of it's butt and stop caring about what cat you put on what as long as it sniffs within spec at the tailpipe. I'm not condoning theft but CA state policy is a large part of why this issue hurts as bad as it does.
- cartoonworld 5y agoCat install costs way more than that. But aside, would you really be okay going back to the days of photochemical smog choking away your sunlight and skyrocketing rates of asthma and acid rain dissolving your ancestor's gravestones?? Federal law requires the catalytic converters. Everyone is definitely better off for them.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago> Cat install costs way more than that. Around here they're ~1hr of shop labor plus the cost of the cat (the latter being like $50 for an aftermarket cat up to a few hundred for an OEM cat (though there's a few vehicles with oddly expensive ones) with the 50-state cats always costing an integer multiple more. >But aside, would you really be okay going back to the days of photochemical smog choking away your sunlight and skyrocketing rates of asthma and acid rain dissolving your ancestor's gravestones?? What part about "sniffs withing spec at the tailpipe" was unclear?
- cartoonworld 5y ago$150 cat? I don't buy it. It costs $50 to turn the welder on for cheapy aftermarket units that fail fast, the clamp type arent compatible for most exhausts and cats are more that $50 even for older vehicles. Recent models can be hundreds of dollars on parts wholesalers. Your mechanic will charge list price. https://www.walkerexhaust.com/products/light-vehicle/catalytic-converters.html https://www.walkerexhaust.com/products/light-vehicle/catalyt... It won't sniff within spec at the tailpipe without the catalyst.
- dpritchett 5y agoThat was kind of like hitting the lottery for us,” said Sacramento County Sheriff’s Detective Tom McCue, who led a multi-agency task force on the case. Glad they busted up a theft ring but this sounds like a moral hazard, assuming they’re keeping the money.
- Robotbeat 5y agoWell I suppose this is one advantage of pure electric cars.
- imglorp 5y agoCame here to say that, and yes good riddance of the whole emissions cycle we've endured for decades. EV battery packs are certainly serial numbered and traceable, but these guys will just pivot to breaking up packs and selling cells or whatever.
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- lastofthemojito 5y ago> these guys will just pivot to breaking up packs and selling cells or whatever I'm sure electric cars are being, and will continue to be, stolen, parted out, etc. But battery theft won't look quite like catalytic converter theft as batteries are much heavier and aren't as easily accessible. Check out the video of a catalytic converter theft posted by another commenter in this thread [0]. The thief slides under the SUV at the 1:37 mark, does some cutting from about 2:00-2:14, then slides out with his prize around 2:24. In and out in less than a minute - no need to jack up the vehicle (SUVs and trucks are often already high enough), no need to enter the vehicle. And the catalytic converter weighs something like 10 pounds so he can just walk away with it. Stealing an 800-pound battery pack out of a Tesla would be a much more involved operation. 0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EP3N4RwHd5k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EP3N4RwHd5k
- KMnO4 5y agoMy boss has a video of someone jacking up his Model 3 and sliding underneath (thankfully leaving with nothing). I guess thieves aren’t always the brightest bulbs.
- dawnerd 5y agoWait till you find out how easy and profitable it is to bust off Tesla mirrors.
- _huayra_ 5y agoIt's things like this that make it such a shock to go to an extremely safe country / area. All the little scripts one has to keep track of to be "safe and secure" in the US (e.g. instinctively locking your doors all the way to learning that you can't park in SF to take your girlfriend to lunch on your way to drop her off at the airport because a big suitcase is a target for these rampant smash-and-grabs; unfortunately I had to learn this one the hard way) seem absurd if the whole society functions well. Figuring out how to park on a hill to deter cat theft, buy security nuts for wheels to avoid wheel theft, using special security nuts for one's bike parts to avoid bike component theft (not to mention having to find indoor bike parking because brazen daylight bike theft just seems to be tolerated now) are the sort of tricks one learns to adapt to, but when you visit a place like Japan, Singapore, or Norway, all of this stuff makes you realize how dystopic things have gotten in the US. Not saying that no country is without flaws, but the little "quality of life hacks" one must do to be safe in the US don't make up for things descending as far into chaos as they have.
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoPetty theft patterns in states that have passed ballot measures or counties that have taken executive actions reducing the penalties on petty theft to the point where the ROI is positive even if you get regularly caught should not be taken as indicative of the entire country. I live in a city that most of HN would turn up their nose at. It's nothing like what people from the west coast describe as the status quo there. And it's not some city in a red state that spends big bucks on law and order either.
- iammisc 5y agoYeah my parents moved from LA in california to rural Washington. People told them a kinds of things including that they wouldn't feel welcome .. we are brown skinned and they immigrated here. This area is deep red The city they moved to is hours from am airport. Smack dab nowhere. They didn't find it dangerous at all. To the contrary people there were extremely welcoming ... Very neighborly. They could leave their door unlocked and not be bothered. The occasional (and I mean occasional) theft was big news and the guy was caught Far cry from getting our house vandalized with gang graffiti
- moltar 5y agoHere’s how it happens: https://youtu.be/EP3N4RwHd5k https://youtu.be/EP3N4RwHd5k
- 1-6 5y agoWe need to build cities with ring roads. It'll deter thieves because cities are vulnerable to thieves driving in and out quickly on freeways.
- gimmeThaBeet 5y agoI remember seeing what looked like basically every city in the San Joaquin Valley seemed unusually highly ranked on a per-capita car theft list of US cities (e.g. Bakersfield, Stockton, Merced, Modesto), and further north into the Sacramento Valley (Redding, Yuba, Chico). Is it just sort of size effects of California, or is there something like systemic cat theft that is a particular thing? The major cities are also there, but the crazy part to me was it is basically like, the entire central valley.
- geephroh 5y agoThis has become enough of an issue here in the Seattle metro area that the King County prosecutor's office has a special taskforce, in conjunction with several neighboring jurisdictions. It happens in the city, the suburbs, and even at busy trailheads. It's particularly concerning because some folks are beginning to take matters into their own hands[1]. 1. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/man-accused-of-shooting-suspected-catalytic-converter-thief-in-lakewood/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/man-accused-...
- jtbayly 5y agoWhat do you expect people to do if the civil magistrate decides not to protect people's life and property?
- mikestew 5y agoWhat do I expect people to do? Not drag people behind a truck over a car part. What, you think that’s reasonable? Or is it just the shooting that you don’t find to be over the top?
- jtbayly 5y agoTaking things into their own hands is literally all that is left, unless you are a pacifist. I never made any statement about how people should take it into their own hands or what degree was acceptable or over what. Nor did I say anything about shootings being acceptable. So take your straw man out of here. What would you do is if somebody was taking $1500 of yours along with your ability to provide for yourself for several days while your vehicle is out of commission? (Or is it only when the government does that through civil asset forfeiture that you have a problem with it? Two can play at this game, you know.) Remember, “call the police” isn’t an option.
- mikestew 5y agoSo take your straw man out of here. No straw man, it was in the referenced article, which one might assume to be the context of your comment. But if you’re just making a random, out-of-context statement, you’ll have to allow that others are keeping up with the conversation.
- google234123 5y agoWhat do people expect if you effectively decriminalize these crimes?
- RileyJames 5y agoHad both my catalytic converters stolen off my E250 in Vancouver Canada, parked in the backyard of a mates house. Frustrating because the van wasn’t worth replacing them. But surprisingly it was legal to replace them with straight pipe. Obviously ethically dubious, due to increased emissions. But a better option that scraping the vehicle prematurely and purchasing a new one. Either way. I’d be looking at the demand side. The thieves aren’t melting them down, they’re flogging them for cash. Who’s paying cash for clearly hastily sawn off catalytic converters in bulk?