Motors What the hell, where did 4ft of my exhaust go?!

That's it, I've been putting off lowering my car for ages and now it seems I now have an excuse.

 

Hmm I`m sorry to hear that you have to fork out over £150 to replace the part, but something bothers me about this everyone seems to assume the thief was after the CAT. But maybe they were just after that primary system part in the first place. Just a thought.

 

I knew it was some exotic metal

 

Well it's not worth anything so I assume they were after the cat, apparently on my car the two look very similar.

 

The underside of my car is completely covered with a sheet of metal with just two holes for each of the exhaust. I can't see any stealing of exhausts happening to me

 

If the garage have seen 10 similar it's likely they weren't just trying to get a cheap spare for their own car. Round our way thieves are nicking cast iron drain covers from the edge of the road, 40 have gone in a week in Doncaster borough. They're only worth about £1 each scrap but drop a car or bike wheel in the hole left and it's nasty.

 

Wow, that's crazy.

By the way, pipe cutters can be really small and quiet - I have one that I've used to cut a steel tube (3mm thickness - the steerer tube on a bike if you're interested) in less than a minute. It just fits in the palm of your hand.

 

Balls, thats not a good thing. Um... could it be the garage themselves? Selling back your own car part

Regard
GiGo

 

Sounds like an interesting car, what is it?

 

Seconded.

My car is similar, but the exhaust is outside of the plate to reduce heat transfer to the floorboards.
And its about 5" off the ground, and I live in the backwoods, so I do not think I will have a problem.

 

they didn't really just nick that part of your exhaust you know. the guy who did it is actually stealing your entire car but he is doing it on Hire purchase at 1 piece a week. you'll come out next week and your fuel cap will be missing lol

 

Are you creditting chavs with knowing what platinum and rhodium are? Unless they cut open the cat and rings magically popped out, I think they would find it more useful for smashing things (or people) with.

On a serious note If they were after the cat I wouldnt be surprised lots of valuable/precious metals have gone up in price recently so It makes your car a tempting target. You sure it was the local exhaust place trying to drum up business?

I did hear not too long ago of a hospitals back up power generator's cabling being stolen because it contained so much copper.

 

Well spoken Fused. There was some theft of huge spools of copper wire here a couple months ago as well, quite an odd thing to steal. I do feel bad laughing at your misfortune, and for that I am sorry, but that is quite funny and was a good laugh.

 

Stealing cat converters is very common here. Usually they just use a battery powered reciprocating saw and hit the mall at night. An hours work will make you a few hundred bucks and the risk of getting caught is relatively low.

Stealing copper / aluminum is also getting very common over here. There have been a fair few aspiring thieves cooked when they cut the wrong wire. They have also been stealing bronze statues and even grave markers for the metal.

 

I work for a international truck rental company. We've recently been hit up for catalytic converter all over the place. There was even one lot in the local company that had seven trucks disabled in one night. It's becoming a more and more popular target.

 

VW Polo 2008 model, diesel.

The only real way to stop the metal thefts is for the scrapyards to keep a watch out on dodgy goods. There was a TV program recently (think it was Tonight with Trevor McDonald) about this problem and out of all the scrapyards they visited (undercover) with dodgy goods (such as 40 manhole covers or 20 drain covers) none of the scrapyards questioned them and simply accepted the goods for cash.

Stricter rules are needed for scrapyards but with all that red tape and bureaucracy the government is in I don't see it being enforced any time soon, even if legalation is put in place soon.

 

The sad thing is here in the US, it's illegal to run a modern car without a cat. If it was built with a cat, it *has* to be run with a cat.

Somehow, I don't think that'd really work...

Actually, it's well known among metal thieves to go for cars with high ground clearance. Easier to get under it them. Toyotas in particular are being targeted as I think they adopted the better tech earlier.

Regardless, if you have high ground clearance, I'd recommend a cage around the exaust or a nice hefty set of skid plates.

 

Or just connect the exhaust to the points, that'll cook deter any would be thief/.

 

It's the same in the UK, you wont pass your MOT without the CAT if it had one factory fitted.

 

If you find a magic way to pass the emissions, you can get a car originally fitted with a CAT through the test without one. You dont have to have a CAT, but there is no other way to get the emissions low enough.