The theft of catalytic converters has become a major problem especially among the Private Hire community. A problem I was acutely aware of but one I didn’t put too much thought into because, well …. it’s not going to happen to me, is it?
Well I was wrong and recently became another victim of this crime.
At 10:30pm on a Thursday night, I was woken by the noise of an electric grinder outside. I realised straight away that the grinding noise was the sound of the catalytic converter being ripped out from under the Prius. I ran downstairs and fumbled to open the front door as I didn’t have my contact lenses in and picked up my stick which I have perched next to the front door for such occasions.
Without my contact lenses I can barely see 3 feet in front of me but as I approached the pavement I could make out one person under the car, 2 people wearing balaclavas standing guard and a driver in a blue Audi A3 ready to speed off.
I’m not sure what I was thinking as I ran outside but I guess I was hoping that once they saw a man with his chest puffed out holding a stick that they would abort motion and go pick an easier target.
I was wrong, as this crew were clearly professionals who had done this hundreds of times before. If the videos on YouTube are anything to go by, they will happily do this in broad daylight on a busy street so me trying to look menacing in my minions pyjama bottoms wasn’t gonna scare them off.
Within seconds they where gone and I was left there thinking about the stress and financial pain that this was going to cause me.
It was a stressful few days of trying to sort out a new car and upload the new car documents onto the Uber, Bolt and Ola apps but by Monday I was back in the road.
I ended up claiming on the insurance which cost me £500 excess, which is less than half it would have cost me if I paid for a new catalytic converter through Toyota. The whole ordeal also made me lose 3 days off work so all in all I was left about £1000 out of pocket
I have to say that, A10 motors who I rent the car from couldn’t have been more helpful in getting me back on the road as soon as possible. So a big thank you to them.
The silver lining is that I have now upgraded to a Hyundai ioniq which is a much newer, cleaner smoother ride and a car that doesn’t seem to be a target of these thief’s.
The question is, why is the Toyota Prius, especially the second generation such a big target and why are catalytic converters being stolen at such an alarming rate?
It seems that it’s not the unit itself that they want but what is actually inside it. Catalytic converters contain precious metals such as rhodium, palladium and platinum which are there to remove harmful gases from exhaust emissions into the atmosphere.
The price of these metals has drastically risen over the last few years with rhodium for example now being worth six times more than gold.
It’s now starting to make sense why there has been such a rise in catalytic thefts and clear to see why these thieves would take such a risk even in broad daylight.
The older model Prius has been hit much harder due to the fact that on the older models the catalytic converters contain more precious metals along with the fact that the cat is more exposed making it easier to steal.
Hybrids in general are the main target as the precious metals stay in better conditions because the exhaust system gets used less as these cars run on electric for a large proportion of miles.
According to the insurance company Admiral the most susceptible cars are:
Honda Jazz
Toyota Prius
Toyota Auris
Lexus RX
What can you do to prevent your catalytic converters being stolen?
The MET advises that you should park your car in a garage overnight which is a best case scenario or alternatively to park in a well lit area which clearly isn’t a deterrent as these thieves will steal your car in broad daylight on a busy road.
Because of the exponential rise of catalytic converter thefts in recent years there are now products entering the market which physically protect the cat and although they cant prevent your cat being stolen they will make it a lot harder. These products either attach the cat to the car or shield the cat making it a lot harder to steal which should be enough of a deterrent for these opportunistic thieves.
These thieves have no problem being under a car with a noisy angle grinder for less than a minute but I doubt they would take the risk if it was going to take a lot longer than that.
At the bare minimum you can even by small window stickers from amazon that indicate that the car is protected with a catalytic converter guard. It could be enough of a deterrent to make the thieves move on to an easier target.
If you own your PCO car I would highly recommend you get some kind of protection for your catalytic converter. A small investment now could save you a lot of money in the future.
The whole ordeal apart from setting me back financially was very stressful, frustrating and time consuming. Unfortunately it hasn’t ended there as I am now constantly conscious of the fact that these thieves can strike again and there is really nothing that can be done about it.
If you own an electric car, you luckily do not have anything to worry about, but for all you other Private Hire Drivers, I hope it doesn’t happen to you and maybe you’ll take away something from this article that will prevent your catalytic converter being stolen too.
Sickening Video of Catalytic Converter Being Stolen in Broad Daylight
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