Hi guys. Today, i was at one of the major used motor part's market in Lagos, and found something strange. Some Eastern European guys, i think probably from the Bulkans, were in the market, sourcing for catalytic converter substrates to buy. I saw them at the sections where exhaust pipes, and all that stuffs were being sold. They came with a backpack of rae cash, and they'd get to the exhaust sellers,and request that they were into the businesses of buying catalytic converters. What they do is that, the sellers arrange for the catalytic converters for them, and in the presence of the buyers, the substrates in the catalytic converters are forcefully removed, using a ramming tool. They evacuate the substrates, and put them in polythene bags, tie them, and leave. They immediately pay the sellers, or whoever, raw cash. I have never seen those guys come over there before to buy those things. What amazes me is that it seems, this is the new found goldmine market now. I have read in an article, about how the palladium, iridium, and others, are somehow, worth more than several thousand $$$, than gold itself in the market. There must be just something, clandestine, and lucrative about this catalytic converter"businesses", and associated theft of them too.
see the many stolen cats threads here, from all over the world, hey, at least these guys are actually buying them, and not cutting them off of peoples cars. of course, that buying demand creates the criminal activity, but that isn't their fault. a used cat is worth over $1,000. here
They may like to think that, but depending on the jurisdiction, they may find out differently. Generally, the penalty would be lightest if they can very convincingly flutter their eyelids and say they had no idea what they were buying might be stolen. And heaviest if they're in for over $5,000 or so of goods, or around 4 or 5 cats, say. I don't know about the laws in Lagos.
I heard Toyota is now installing metal covers over them in some models. My friend has a new Camry Hybrid and it has a cover similar to my skid plate in my Tundra. I haven't noticed it in my 21 Prius but will look for it next time I have it up on a lift. They do sell aftermarket things you can install yourself, too....it's shocking how fast they crooks can get under a vehicle and cut them right off....especially trucks with a foot of clearance like the Tundras.
These metals are sourced in Russia and China. With the situation between Ukraine and Russia, the price will really go up and cat thefts will likely increase.
it would be funny if people were selling cats in an open market, but stranger things have happened. but judging from the o/p,stolen cats don't seem to be an issue. yet.
Lagos?! Mehn, no laws as regards such here. If you got your catalytic converter stolen here, only the rich can afford an oem cat. What people do here is get a cat from another vehicle, cut it, then weld it as a replacement catalytic converter.
What amazes me is how for instance, these thieves, cut the cats, in a populated neighborhood, and no one seems to hear anything like noises from cutting them. Must be a special tool probably.
Prices have gone way down recently... I'm kinda bummed I didn't jump on this opportunity when you could get $1500 cash for one. Same guy told me a couple weeks ago he can only offer $900 now. My theory is that the prices were so high for so long that corporations put tens of millions into profiting off of boosting supply and that prices aren't going to go back up again.
I don't speculate. I own shares of Exxon-Mobil. At $90 plus for a barrel of oil that just went up by $5 today, I will keep on collecting qualified dividends every year. With inflation, US Treasury I Series Savings Bonds pegged to inflation are paying over 7 percent guaranteed.
i inherited some exxon from my dad, he was a huge fossil fuel guy. got it at 80 bucks a share, and i never thought it would recover during the pandemic. the dividends are nice, but i have a sell order at 80 and will reinvest in solar and other tech that pays dividends. no, they won't be 7%
The price of palladium has gone down by a fair margin over the past year. Being the most expensive of the precious elements in a cat it makes sense the price wouldn't be as high for an old cat today vs a year ago.
No special tool. People seem to be able to sleep through the god awful noise of a battery powered sawzall chopping through an exhaust pipe right outside there house. I have heard a thief do that in person it’s crazy loud inside the house. Woke me right up.
Sad part is a 2 way cat has no rhodium and much less rare earths and is excellent at breaking everything down except NOx Water injection removes all NOx Modern 2-way cats can even be free of all valuable metals and be made of iron oxide, ceramics and copper iodide https://www.chemengonline.com/chementator-a-platinum-free-catalytic-converter/ Instead of stopping all vehicle production you would think we would instead consider alternatives that don’t use dangerous rare metals. do we need to apply federal emergency authorization to pull our head out of our rear? Same could be done with the chip shortage. First world problems, we can build cars without chips but instead build nothing because the rules block us from using an older generation of chip. We could decimate the rare earth market by using different tech but ma rules don’t allow it. I would think in an emergency to get the pipes flowing we could temporarily authorize, it’s not like we haven’t in the past, Ford had special exceptions for its trucks, Tesla was excluded from new safety tests and ThinkEV got a hardship exception so it didn’t have to pass or even be tested by our current safety laws.
