CAT Converter Thefts...

[EdsTowing]

Curious if other areas are seeing converter thefts? It seems that car lots are getting hit in NE Pa quite often. We have been getting a slew of Uhauls coming in with the exhaust hacked...

 

 

Brought these 2 in Friday. They cut a fenced area at a rental facility...never checked the gate was open...and cut the cages & cats off. These will be around 3 grand in parts to repair. I have 2 others waiting for components from GM waiting. The Uhaul repair center in Wilkes-Barre told me they have about 70 missing on their property. I know it's always been a "thing" but seems to be more prevalent now.

[yoBdaBenO]

I can tell you it is getting much worse here. There are few vehicles that are safe from this type of theft. They remove them from vehicle along the expressway, Parked at companies over the weekend, In car dealership lots., etc.

 

One of the ones this week was a guy cutting the cat off a vehicle in a used car dealers lot. The owner lives nearby and saw the guy on camera when the motion was detected. He called the police while he and 3 other guys went to the lot. Well the guy did not fair well as they drug him out from under the second vehicle. By the time the officers arrived the guy was not going anywhere though he had tried.  Got a truck in the impound now with 5 Cats under the bed cover. Not live cats and worth more than the few that hang around.

 

Looks like that cage just made it more of a challenge to reach the award. Hope the Judges are awarding these thieves hefty judgements.  We know there are NOT...

[GRUMPS The Towman]

Cat thefts have been out of control in my area. One dealership in particular had 56 cars and SUVs hit over the holidays... Brand new vehicles. The local UHaul had 15 trucks hit the first time (spring) and 11 the second time (fall). They have gotten me at my tow yard twice since last summer. Luckily, they only nailed a few scrapper cars I had in there waiting for my partner to pick up and not any of my ppi cars or insurance wrecks. I (like most everyone else) have cameras and signage stating so. They simply do not care. They wear their "covid masks" to conceal their faces and they know that the cops could really care less. Hell, most of the dirtbags doing it here are well known by p.d. and yet they still operate essentially unimpeded....

It really is a free for all... Until one of them gets shot by one of us property owners. THEN it might garner some attention from p.d.

[EdsTowing]

3 hours ago, yoBdaBenO said:

Looks like that cage just made it more of a challenge to reach the award. Hope the Judges are awarding these thieves hefty judgements.  We know there are NOT...

They have to replace the cage on every one. On the GM's, they have cut the cat on the outside of the flanges on each side. At that point, you need the entire system from the manifolds back. I told our regional guy that they should make up stickers to place under the trucks saying "Cut Cat Here" on the inside of the flanges...it would save them a grand or so...

[mooresbp]

Had someone try to cut one off a pickup in the ditch over nite in a foot of snow, Too bad the truck didn't slide the rest of the way down the bank when they were under there. They only got the front cut off, tried to hack thru the flex and either gave up or were spooked.

[EdsTowing]

We had a Cadillac a few weeks ago that someone cut the cats off. The guy tried to bring it in and said he lost his breaks. Here they used a long blade on the Sawzall and hacked 4 ABS lines along the frame...

[jeff614]

Big here in Northern VA too. We actually share one of our lots with a U-Haul center who’ve had quite a few cut from their Ford v10’s. Also Prius’. Terrible for the owner but have had a few customers laugh at the sound of their straight piped hybrid. 
 

Airbag bandits and Hondas are even worse. 

[EdsTowing]

I spoke with our guy @ Uhaul on Thursday, they caught 2 guys in their yard the other night. Cops arrested them and found 5 other CAT's in their car.

[Stuart Wagner]

Our local U haul just called us to install converters on 7 trucks got stolen this weekend