Today mine was almost stolen, luckily the blade broke, so they were unable to take it. The crazy thing is I parked in the front line closest to the metro train, and this happened around lunch time.

The police were impressed it happened in broad daylight. They explained it usually happens vehicles who park overnight.

vehicle: Totota 4Runner

 

Wow! Glad the scum's tool failed.

 

That sucks. So grizzlyman, assume you didn't witness this but knew something was up when your car sounded like a tractor?

 

Yep, glad they didn't get a chance to finish their work.

That bad thing is they should find a way to go after the shops that buy them.

I read a simple{?} but cheap deterrent is to paint your cat. converter like a bright color bc the shop won't accept it since they'll have to spend extra to remove the paint.

 

That's a really smart idea. Especially for SUV's and trucks.

 

How did you discover this happened?

 

Have you ever driven a car with open headers? It's not what I would call a subtle difference.

 

Well it's been a long time since my muffler went bad, but I would assume the noise was related to something like that. It wouldn't occur to me to check for cut cat pipes.

 

there is something about toyotas that cat thieves are targetting. VERY often i see prius, sequoia, and tundras as targets for theft

 

Thieves target SUVs as there is no need to lift the vehicle, the cat is easy accessible.

As soon as I turn on the ignition, the noise was evident. I thought was a blown header gasket, but I had that funny feeling someone tamper with the car.

The crazy thing I work a very early morning shift and where I park is always a desert, two days in a row this kids at a nearby bench, not even 5:45am, and that to me was a red flag, but brushed it away and headed to work.

When I got back the same two kids appeared out of nowhere in the distance, while I was talking to the police.

​​​​​​Am waiting for the case to be assigned to the investigations team for them to facilitate the video footage from security cameras, and lift fingerprints from the left behind broken blade.

I went to a muffler shop, they want $200 to weld it back, IMO is a rip off. Might as well get a clamp and the muffler tape, is not as if this is some high end sports car.

 

 

The Prius is a target because it's converters have a higher concentration of precious metals compared to other cars. I would think that it's also a target because it's not a heavy car, and as a result, thieves can carry a small 1.5 ton floor jack around with them vs. the heavier 2 or 3 ton floor jacks. Pick up trucks and some SUVs are easy targets because thieves don't need a floor jack to get underneath.

 

Wow. Never knew the Prius had a little more special cats.

 

It's not so much that the Prius has special converters. I believe it's because the Prius is a hybrid. Since hybrids use less gas than an ICE vehicle, their cats are submitted to less wear, which means that the metals inside of them are less likely to have broken down.

 

Ok got yeah. That sort of makes sense.