More California Stolen catalytic converter tips Prius V

Yes Prius Vs are targeted by Cat theives. Recently I picked up a 2015 Prius V at Coparts auction in Portland and had it shipped to Seal Beach. Unfortunately it was not disclosed at auction as having a stolen Cat. Upon inspection, the thieves in Portland are not as experienced as those in SoCal. Rather than unbolting from the exhaust manifold they made a precision cut that removed a portion of the exhaust manifold gasket. (must have taken a long time). They also cut the coolant lines of the heat exchanger and removed the exchanger as well. This is why if your cat is removed and they cut coolant line you could overheat since all your coolant drains out. (Look for coolant levels if you loose your cat.) This differs from the theft locally where they unbolted from the exhaust manifold and made a cut just below the catatlytic converter.
There is a 10-12 month national Toyota backlog to receive a prius V cat. Who can store their Prius and wait that long? The only way to resolve this in California is to purchase a cat and wait. But in the meantime you also need to purchase a non Ca compliant cat. Have it shipped to a virtual mailbox and then forward it to your address in california. They are cheap ($100) and with a genuine Toyota O2 Sensor they pass smog (functionally but not always the visual inspection) I usually connect the pipe and install marking the union with a pick. Then I uninstall it and bring it to a welder for a profesional weld job. With a cat cover and the appearance of factory (minus the stamp cat code which is covered by a cat shield) i haven't had problems getting smogged. Once my OEM part comes in, I will replace and then will abide by state Laws.
The Portland car was more of a problem because they removed the heat exchanger. And you would have to add additional piping. It would never pass inspection. The only solution I had was to buy a wrecked Prius V at auction for $3100. Which means I had to personally inspect the cars before bidding to make sure they had an exhaust. So I replaced the damaged cat and heat exchanger from the donor car. But after installation to my surprise the check engine light came on with a P0037 OBD error (O2 sensor heater element.) Which brings me to the point of this thread. The O2 sensor was good but still showed check engine error. To solve the problem I removed all fuses to the ECM and then reinstalled them. The Check engine light went off and I was then able to erase the code. I suspect that when they cut the wires to the O2 sensor it shorted the ECM. Removing and reinstalling ECM fuses reset the module. I hope you can follow this thread. I didn't take pictures.