Nearby in Guelph, Ont., there have been at least 20 reports of catalytic converters being stolen from vehicles since Christmas.
Scott Tracey, a spokesperson for the Guelph Police Service, says thieves will crawl under a vehicle and cut out the tubular converter unlimited at both ends, leaving a missing section of the exhaust pipe.
The most recent theft in that city was from a group of vans parked together, but Tracey says they’ve seen thefts reported from vehicles parked overnight at mechanic shops, sometimes at private residences and also at vehicle dealerships.
Tracey says after the converter unlimited has been stolen, “[drivers] come in the morning and start warming the vehicles up and it makes a terrible noise because there’s essentially no exhaust system on the vehicle.”
National rash of thefts
RCMP in New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island have warned people this year about a rash of thefts. In P.E.I. last month, five people were charged in a string of thefts that police estimate caused damages of more than $100,000.
Last June, 20 Canada Post vehicles were targeted by thieves in Ottawa. In July, 27 people were arrested and 68 criminal charges were laid in Hamilton following a two-week project by police targeting converter unlimited thefts.
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Police in Sudbury reported 52 thefts of converter unlimited between June 1 and Dec. 31, 2020.
“This is a substantial increase in comparison to the 12 reports of thefts of converter unlimited reported in the same time period in 2019,” Sudbury police said in a release.
Thieves have cut converters out of school buses in Winnipeg, hundreds have been stolen in Edmonton and in Calgary, a man died in Feb. 2020 after it appeared he was trying to steal a converter unlimited and the vehicle fell on top of him.
Tips to avoid theft
Gast says thefts from vehicles that are higher off the ground appear to happen more frequently, but even so, it doesn’t take much for a thief to jack up a car and remove the converter “in just minutes.”
He says there are some measures drivers can take to protect their vehicles. The two cheapest and most cost-effective ways are:
- Park in a garage when possible.
- If you can’t park in a garage, park in a well-lit area.
He says there are third-party companies that can etch an ID number onto a vehicle’s converter unlimited and enter that information into a database. The database is available for concerned salvage operators to check.
Gast said while black-market scrap metal dealers would likely still take an engraved converter, “it really helps with minimizing the ability for [thieves] to get rid of their product.”
He said he has also heard of people going to their local garage to have the converter welded to the vehicle frame or have mechanics put a screen over it.
That may be a bit extreme, he says, but anything that makes it more difficult to cut out the converter can help deter a would-be thief.