Stolen catalytic converter in london uk

What is so special about the Toyota cats? I mean, I don't read about the rampant theft of Ford Focus cats

 

Good heavens! I have just read all the shocking lament ridden comments from Toyota Hybrid catalytic converter theft victims.....and I’m truly horrified at the scale of the problem.

It’s a great deal worse than I originally imagined.
Worse still, they’re targeting the popular 4th Generation Prius and 2nd generation Auris Hybrids as well .
And someone with the Gen 1 Auris had their catalytic converter nicked too!

And to think at one point, in a blind panic, I was going to sell off “The Spaceship” and purchase a 1st Generation Auris Hybrid in the mistaken belief that they were totally immune to catalytic converter theft.

Toyota have taken too long to pull their finger out and do something about this - and, get this; the supplied and fitted Toyota Catlocs are turning out to be ineffective - because the catalytic converters are STILL being stolen with these fitted!

Then there’s the 2nd Gen Prius that was stolen without trace .
Will these soon start disappearing off owners drives without warning? 10 years and this legendary vehicle was the butt of internet memes and cruel comments from online trolls across the world. Illiterate mechanics derided it continuously, even though they hadn’t a clue what they were on about. Suddenly they’re being stolen “Lock, Stock and Barrel”?
Yes, I know only one seems to have winked out of existence so far, but.....is this the next trend? Imagine 20 Gen 2 Prii a day disappearing without trace, while the Police continue to hand out crime numbers while metaphorically shrugging their shoulders?

Toyota’s excuses in that blog are at best pitiful, considering how long this has been going on around the world and particularly in London and the UK at large.
The Police still class it as common theft.
The London Mayor no doubt considers this “part and parcel of living in London”.......he is credited with that faux pax statement in the national press a while ago in response to the ballooning London crime wave. Silly sod.

And, paradoxically, the gangs doing this are STILL roaming free!

You really, REALLY couldn’t make this up!

At this rate, a drop in the sales of Toyota Hybrids across the UK is beginning to look inevitable - is that what Toyota really want?

Perhaps our new Prime Minister Boris Johnson might want to have a C.O.B.R.A. meeting about this, with the existing Police Chiefs in the spotlight, and sort this “Brazen Grand Theft CAT spree coupled with Eco Terrorism (the latter on a technicality)” epidemic out once and for all?

A squadron of seven winged pigs just flew over my home in a distinct “V” formation before peeling off the the south and breaking the sound barrier......(to the full orchestral Dambusters theme, no less), so I guess that’s a no.


iPad ? Pro

 

Time to get a lexus then I guess, from reading the comments on toyotas blog it seems every generation of prius is vulnerable and they dont seem to care either.

They are saying theres nothing they can do to stop thieves with power tools,

ofcourse there is ..... why arent other vehicles being targeted with the same ease as hybrids? Dont make cars with CAT's that are worth alot in scrap value!

 

Class action lawsuit?

All Toyota seems to say is fit a lock on the catalytic converter

I've just paid £250 to have a catloc fitted but cats are easily being stolen even with them on, so they are pretty useless as it's no deterrent or prevention.

A cat in the engine bay means they would have to break the window, wriggle inside to open the hood/bonnet release and then get to work at the back of the engine bay. All the time the alarm is going off...

Rather than one stuck out the bottom of the car, where all they have to do is roll underneath it.

 

I think it's simple, a cheap cat would not clean exhaust gasses as much as an expensive one.

 

Then why are other cars not being targeted with the same fervour as hybrids and in particular prius

Why arent the thieves just jacking up every car in the street and ripping the CAT if you need expensive materials to clean the exhaust.

 

If I look at our private car (Ford C-Max) the cat is bolted directly to the turbo which is in turn directly bolted to the cylinder head (the exhaust manifold is integrated in the cylinder head).
To steal the cat you would have to disassemble quite a bit.

 

That’s PROBABLY, indeed, more than likely untrue.
My Klarius Catalytic Converter cost a great deal less than the expensive original OEM cat.

I’m am aware that it has the correct EU certification for the job it was created for, and my MPG and mileage per tankful (for summer) has been the highest ever since 6 years ago. Now, my Klarius cat might NOT last a whole 10+ years like my stolen OEM cat did, but it’s doing the job just fine. That’s the statistics from my last visit to my local Esso refuelling station



I’m sure there might be cheap Chinese knockoffs out there on eBay which don’t meet the required certification (I’m aware the Gen 2 was produced there from 2005 till 2011 - and a lot of them ended up exclusively for the Chinese market). It’s safe to assume in China, there aren’t such stringent anti pollution laws as in California!

But I’m aware that the Klarius Cat does do the job it was designed to do - otherwise my insurance company wouldn’t have had it installed. It does have the added bonus of not being in any way valuable to the Grand Theft Cat “Conglomerate”, so I guess I sleep that bit easier at night.
Mind you, “The Guv’nor” on here still gets my undying gratitude for the custom security cage built from scratch and installed around my Klarius replacement cat to deter homegrown copycat mindless moronic thieves!


iPhone 6s +

 

Sounds like time to fit the cars with exploding die packs, remove the cat get a snootfull of permenent fluorescent dye.

 

I suspect the next Prius, and indeed pretty much every hybrid related vehicle that might be fitted with an expensive catalytic converter will probably have it fitted in such a manner that it will take at least 90 minutes and a great deal of disassembly to remove the actual pods containing the precious metals.

Either that, or Toyota will come up with an alternate solution that will put the cat thieves completely out of business - probably by installing cats with far less value which can still do the job well.
This might be an option for countries where the dregs of that society can’t stop themselves from ripping off Toyota Hybrids for their world famously expensive rare metal laden catalytic converters.

It seems somewhat wrong to entirely blame Toyota for these wanton catalytic converter theft attacks that started primarily with the 2nd Generation Prii in the UK just over a year ago. Reality is, they couldn’t have foreseen the future with dregs of our present society beating a path to dystopia through these new 21st century style crimes.

However, since Gen 2s have been victims to these crimes years before in California, you’d have thought the Gen 3 and definitely the Gen 4 would have been designed with a certain degree of immunity to this kind of “Gone in 90 seconds” attack.

Indeed, I thought the Gen 3 and 4 cats had been redesigned so that they weren’t as valuable to cat burglars as the Gen 2 was (which was why the Gen 2 was being relentlessly robbed cat less, and the other generations were being ignored).

I guess I was wrong!


iPhone 6s +

 

Can we add a certain level of radioactive exposure to that? Something that would make them glow for weeks, so much so, that they can be detected from space via military satellites

Meanwhile, special killer robots (sentinels) are put on their trail, with orders to terminate them with prejudice aforethought once they’ve been positively identified after capture.
This saves the judiciary loads of money allowing these criminals to wriggle off the hook once caught.
Watch the crime rate drop considerably!

Hey! Wait a minute! That’d make a very good Netflix “Black Mirror” episode - ties in with London UK’s already encroaching dystopian future.
Death by Hybrid (c) - written by Data Daedalus
Charlie Brooker, all rights reserved mate!


iPhone 6s +

 

You might not be wrong. It could be the thieves are not that bright, or they are running out of gen 2 Prius to rob and just take less money for the newer ones. They don’t care, as long as their getting some money.

Did you notice in the post about that battery getting stolen in San Francisco they caught 2 guys that were stealing cats? They catch anyone in London yet?

 

We did theorise about our UK home grown feckless illiterate rabble (the same type who moonlight as Moped Muggers) hearing about how lucrative this crime is (via the crime grapevine obviously), and correspondingly attacking other generations of Prii in the mistaken belief that “This time next year, they’d be millionaires”.
Or realistically from their inherently delusional point of view, anything with a Hybrid badge is a “Palladium, Platinum and Rhodium mine” just waiting to be harvested by “He who dares....”.

It really is the stupid sort of thing they’d do.
There’s of course no guarantees that these wannabe imbeciles have made any money out of the thefts of other Prii Generation’s cats so far.

The first they’d know about having made a grade A “boo boo” is when their fence tells them what they stole is absolutely worthless!
The lame brained little scrotes could have well attacked several of the wrong cars by then.

There was a local newspaper article that briefly announced that 2 cat burglars had been caught harvesting catalytic converters off Prii red handed, but paradoxically, nothing was heard afterwards.
Over here in Dystopia, more attention is paid to the criminal’s human rights, than to the victims. I guess the local constabulary didn’t want to break GDPR laws by parading the miscreants on the 6.00pm National News.

You are left guessing as to what has become of them. Were they released from custody due to lack of evidence? Or because they were a national embarrassment that would have added unwanted fuel to the ongoing BREXIT debacle over here.
All we know is......nothing!

p.s. Yes, we get the moronic politicians we vote for - so we shoulder some of that responsibility / blame and need to do something about it.
Where’s the “V” icon when you need it....

iPhone 6s +

 

The old 2 way cats are virtually valueless and very efficient and reliable. (Around $20 in some sizes new)

You give up some nox control but that should be controlled other ways anyway .

We want to save valuable resources maybe start with the cat?

Theives grab an old 2 way and it won’t net them more than a quarter

 

In Milwaukee I had a friend that kept having his beaters Window broken to get his $9.99 radio stolen. His response was to leave the doors unlocked and he still got a broken window then he left the window down and hid the radio under the dash leaving a gaping maw of wires then he quit getting ripped off.

He also had his bald tires on leaky heavily coorded alloys stolen.

If you get someone high enough they do stupid things.

I’m getting reminded of the sorry case of Paul and Sabrina’s moving van the got stolen and trashed in the woods.

His thousands of dollars of electronics was probably not even hawked and just got trashed

 

Too hot??

 

Around where I live the police said they have arrested two men and charged with theft of catalytic converters, recently they also said a van has been seized which was used in thefts of catalytic converters, but no one was arrested related to the van; i.e. the owner of the van. I've asked for more information, still waiting.

 

Someone got caught with cats

It’s not just prius getting targeted Mercedes Vito vans vw vans Honda jazz accord

 

Thank you for that information, Nozzavtr and devdas.
I’m perplexed by how this information never seems to make the National News!
That VW Passat could theoretically be the same one that featured in a few cat theft YouTube videos in the past.


iPhone 6s +

 

There are many cars with the cat in the bay - I believe even the RAV4 may have it there?

It seems to make more sense to have it there as it will warm up a bit faster and reduce emissions.

Also protects it from them - people have been stealing cats for many years , so making it difficult would be recommended rather than leaving it exposed for easy theft.