DealersEdge Professional Forums

We've just had our parts delivery trucks hit and the cat conv stolen from 5 of them. Does anyone have any experience in methods to deter this from happening? I have heard that locally the thieves tend to come back to a previous target

Razor blades and explosives

We have handed out a lot of insurance estimates for these lately. 8 for one used car dealer nearby! It won't be long before the CAT CONV clause will be right up there with the COVID clause in all insurance policies. On the other side of the coin, our sales of them have gone up as a result.

Cat converter thefts have been huge in our area for the past couple of years and it keeps getting worse. Many area repair shops have begun painting the converters on vehicles to try and deter thefts and it has seemed to help somewhat. It has been so bad here that some repair shops and dealerships offer a day such as on a Saturday when they offer free painting of catalytic converters to anyone who wants to come in and I have heard it has generated some additional customer pay work from people coming in to get their converter painted.
All of the salvage yards in our area have agreed in working with law enforcement to not accept any painted catalytic converters so when thieves steal a painted converter and they try and turn it in for cash, the salvage yards will not accept a painted converter and the yard will contact law enforcement when they have someone trying to turn in a painted one.
We see it go in waves around here where in a certain month many business's with delivery vehicles will get hit and then the next month we won't hear of any thefts. In November there was a school bus yard, motor home dealer, and Fedex that got hit and I had heard that between all of them, they had over 70 converters stolen.

if you have room park them in service at night