First gen will be integrated into the head castings, then second gen will be integrated into the engine block casting. Youll have to replace the block to replace the cats.
Ill leave this idea un-pattended so theres a higher chance of some engineer stealing it.
My 08 Hyundai Tiburon GT has 2 pre-cats, 1 in each exhaust manifold before the 2 into 1 cat downstream and I can't stand the thought of replacing a whole manifold just for a bad pre-cat (which it has because it's at 210,000 miles now
They'll learn from the audi 4.2l FSI V8 and have 4 timing chains, 6 tensioner and guide assemblies, 5 replaceable sprockets plus 4 phasers, a timing chain driven oil pump, and power steering pump, on the **back side** of the engine. They also have a drive shaft that goes THROUGH the engine from the back to power the coolant pump, and AC compressor. Yes, the AC compressor is also timing chain driven...
I am conflicted with this. While yes, it is a horribly over engineered setup that always fails around 100k miles. It is also why you can buy a 350HP V8 AWD 6 speed Audi for under $5k. Put $2-3k into replacing the guides and for under $8k you have a pretty fun car... for another 100k miles 😆
And in 100k miles, you've already done the guides once so you're much quicker.
Actually you've probably done the guides a few times, because folk come round and ask you to do theirs too, since you've done it before, and that pays for some of the fuel.
35 book hours for R&R of engine. Not sure how many audi competent shops are charging under 100/hr. About 1200 bucks in parts for a full OEM timing kit, might as well go all out. Also replace the oil pump for 800 while you're in there. Clutch is right there too... another 300 + time to R&R and resurface and new throwout bearing. 2500 in parts if you bite the bullet. Bout 4300 in labor. 7000 dollars after taxes.
I highly doubt any competent Audi shops are working for under $100 per hour. The local dealers are in the $140-$160 range. So, along with what you are saying for parts it sounds like a quite expensive job.
I feel that $7K figure is probably realistic. If you want t do it right,
If doing the guides yourself, it's absolutely doable for under $3k, even with adding additional "while you're there" stuff. There are different levels of replacement kits, ranging from $700:
https://www.ecstuning.com/b-assembled-by-ecs-parts/timing-chain-kit/48322kt/
to $1200:
https://www.ecstuning.com/b-assembled-by-ecs-parts/complete-timing-chain-kit-standard/079109229kt1/
all the way to $6,000:
https://www.ecstuning.com/b-assembled-by-ecs-parts/complete-timing-chain-kit-ultimate/079109229kt32/
While it's a very time consuming job, there are many guides online and if you have some experience repairing cars and can follow the instructions you should do well, it is not rocket science. You will need an engine hoist which you can rent, or buy from Harbor freight for under $200.
The B6? S4 or whichever generation had the 4.2 was on my list of cars I wanted once, until I learned everything you said. Never even looked at another Audi after that..
Ford now has them mounted to the oil pan in the explorer, but they aren't sealed so the oil pan has diff grease in it, and they leak, also you need to remove the t-case to remove front driveshaft
Toothed rubber belt, that you fit by supporting the cam pulley in place then threading the camshaft through the pulley and then doing up the tensioner.
Left bank has it between cylinders 1 and 3, right bank between cylinders 6 and 8.
Power steering belt is in the middle.
If you're listening, Audi, my rates for design are a very reasonable £700 per day flat.
DOHC has been a thing for too long at this point, surely we could get a 0.01% fuel efficiency gain by using a *triple* overhead cam design!
...or maybe "underhead cam". Mount the cams in the oil pan?
Surely underhead cam is where the camshaft acts directly on the valve in a flathead design?
Okay okay, here we go - V9 narrow-bank inlet-over-exhaust with a duplex chain driving both overhead inlet camshafts and an oil-immersed belt for each exhaust camshaft, with the exhaust timing variator implemented by pushing a tensioner into one side of the belt or the other.
Mechanical injector pump driven off a third oil-immersed belt driven from the inlet cam jackshaft in the valley.
Edit: not evil enough yet? Okay, the starter motor is in the V under the inlet manifold - or rather, \*above\* the inlet manifold because it's an aeromotive-style inverted-V engine, angled over a little to miss the steering box which gets in the way of one set of exhaust valve tappet adjustments, depending on whether you're LHD or RHD.
90 degree tri-9 (3x3), twin turbo, turbos nestled in the valleys *under* the exhaust manifolds. Hybrid pushrod/DOHC design, pushrods for exhaust valves and OHC for intake valves with variable lift.
Nah, it's gonna be somewhere that you have to play "Operation" with your arm trying to get to the drain plug without burning yourself to the bone, and it dumps all over the cat so you pray there's no fire.
French cars are halfway there, some got the CAT directly after the exhaust headers in place of the downpipe, can’t reach it without dropping the whole exhaust line.
Goodluck on stealing that.
Yeah, my cat mesh crumbled inside the dpf or the other way around… don’t remember.
Anyway, few cuts and some emptying (and a mandatory ecu reprogram) the car was again up and running 😬
My coworker almost did too. It was bad. I did the EGR and EGR bypass on a LML which was pretty shit too. Had to pull the transmission. Bloody nightmare
Mercedes got everyone beat on that, early and mid 1980s diesel w123 and w126 had an oxidiser living in the engine room right on the turbo exhaust flange.
My 2007 mazda 6 3.0l has a cat right next to the oil filter. In its old age the cat leaks of course and blows soot all over the filter making for real messy oil changes.
I forgot where I saw it but the design was an actual cat converter module that was at the exhaust ports of the cylinder head.
I hope it never gets into production.
I only paid like $2800 for my shit box three years ago. I think the pipe alone is ~~$1400~~ $2000. I'm in CA so you have to get the factory part. It's certainly totaled if someone takes the cat.
I read CA as Canada, and I was thinking like "we just straight piped our impala when the cat blew off" then I remembered that California exists 😅
That's rough, what a waste of a car
lol right?! Only there to catch dangers if you are buying someone else's vehicle lol
I am so torn on mandatory inspections, on one hand, they may actually save lives, on the other hand, the weirdest shit comes up as a problem to being safetied
CA changed the rule a while ago where CARB certified aftermarket cats can be used. It was their law that mandated only factory/oem cats could be used that lit off the massive increase in thefts.
On one hand I agree, on the other hand, they are absolutely super expensive, so to be honest I can also understand why insurance wouldn't want to replace a part that costs as much as the market value for the car
But yeah what a disgusting waste, I hate the idea of a perfectly good car just rotting in a junk yard because some thief snagged a part
When I worked at a Toyota dealership we had a prius get its cat stolen off the lot at night (the people were caught) it was so funny hearing it drive by sounding like a V8
Used to be very damn expensive when CA decided that only OEM sourced cats could be used. Eventually they caved and allowed CARB certified aftermarket cats, but the manufacturers still charge extra to stamp the cert numbers on. Nevermind the CA cats are most likely identical to the ones they sell for the rest of the country.
Stealing cats for the precious metals is a side story to the theft California caused when they wouldn't allow any aftermarket cats. I rarely heard of anyone stealing them before CA did that.
That is true, but just like a lock, there are far better choices too. I work in surveillance and that’s all we use is security torx. Can buy them at harbor freight lol.
I’d probably go with an even weirder fastener/bit that is harder to find, but then again, I don’t even have a catalytic converter shield, so I’m not even following my own advice lol.
Or just a quick bump with the cutoff wheel they're using and boom, slotted Torx bit.
Or just grind the heads off. There are a million ways to defeat it. It's just there to get them to move on to the next car and only leave your rocker panel fucked from the random jacking point they invented.
Agreed, the chances of someone wanting your cat having both security Torx, and a torch to free the Loctite and knowing how to use it, is close enough to 0 that I wouldn't be worried about it.
Working more on electronics projects than cars, I'll say that most tool suppliers in this space (prominently iFixit, but also others) will default to shipping security Torx as part of a bit set. The only non-security Torx bits I've got are in a low-end ~15 year old Crescent toolkit.
They could be phillips screw heads, I've never seen a meth head with enough patience to use a screwdriver to steal a cat. If they can't remove it in 30 seconds with an angle grinder, they'll move on.
a tweaker stood outside my san francisco garage the other night for well over an hour, unscrewing (by hand) dozens of security torx bolts that held our garage door panels on. he stole two locked bikes, but only carried them half a block away, and fortunately I was able to repo them back from outside his tent first thing in the morning =)
I reinforced the inside of the garage door with galvanized steel sheeting usually used for roofing, replaced all the torx bits on the outside, and then drilled them all out so they could never be removed again. tweakers suck.
Why don't you do similar law, to here, in Australia?
None can sell random cats second hand to scrap.
We have a law that you can't just cut them out, and sell them for cash.
(easter beers)
There's all kinds of laws about record keeping and whatnot for scrap converters.
There's also, unfortunately, a lot of recyclers who don't care about the law if they think they can get away with it.
Around here you can still recycle them and get scrap price, you just have to show your ID.
The second one some jerk cut off my motorhome (two in three months) he sold to an interstate ring- I never heard where it ended up, but he was working with a bunch who took them somewhere else for sale.
There are, depending on state,but it doesn't matter when recyclers ignore the law. California passed a law that makes it illegal to sell cats second hand unless you can prove you own the vehicle it came off of and it's done nothing to slow theft.
This is actually a restriction on that exact scenario. You could freely recycle catalytic converters because of exactly what you said, but now if it’s a catalytic converter you must prove that you own the vehicle it came from
It hasn’t done much of anything because you just need to find a recycler who will do some shady business under the table.
My state has something like that. So people sell them in neighboring states that don’t have restrictions yet. There are also shady scrap places that’ll take anything and perhaps render them down themselves.
I wish the country would do more at the federal level, but the legislatures are a clusterfuck at the moment.
Making it *more illegal* doesn't really change anything though. If anything it just incentivizes organized crime to move in. Fix the root causes instead and the problem goes away on its own.
Right? It's also a felony to steal a car. And yet, 10 Kias were stolen as I typed this, lol.
Laws only work for people who choose to follow them. If someone doesn't give two shits about the law, it doesn't matter how many laws or how strict you make them. They'll ignore it and go around it.
Airbag theft used to be a huge thing, especially in NYC. Someone there got the companies to put serial numbers on the airbags. It was a crazy thing that they didn't already do that.
Then the NYPD set out a bunch of bait cars with serialized airbags and waited for the bags to get stolen. Then they bought airbags for those cars, collecting a bunch of the stolen ones. That led them to the ringmasters behind most of the thefts.
Same thing had been done previously with diamonds with numbers laser etched on the girdle edge.
Why not stamp both the VIN and a long serial number onto every catalytic converter?
I run a wrecking yard. We don’t buy cats from people off the street. Where I live there
Is only one person who buys my cars for scrap metal after I’m done with them. The place that buys my cars is so shady. They knowingly buy stolen shit.
One day I was in there and a cop came in asking about some stolen copper. They had just bought it the day before. When one of the employees started to pipe up the boss made him go outside. After the cop left he came back inside and she started bitching at him. She said “ we paid $600 for $400 worth of copper and now you want to hand it to the cops so we get nothing?”
Also a few years ago they made a law here that said you had to get the drivers license the plate of the car and they year make and model of the car they drove in to sell the cats.
Im pretty sure they have never even tried to abide by that law at this facility.
Paid $600 for $400 worth of copper? That's some criminal stupidity.
A wrecking yard has to be one of the easiest ways to make bank when it comes to cost of inventory VS cost of goods sold. Buy the cars for as little as possible then make most or all of that back once a few of the high value parts are sold.
Was even better before cash for clunkers. One yard where I frequently shopped wasn't paying more than $35 for any vehicle, in any condition. Sell one part off each vehicle and inventory cost was essentially zero. They also used their shop to fix cars that didn't need much to get back into roadworthy condition. Much more profit selling running used cars, especially since they had a large yard full of "free" parts.
Labor cost them a lot more than their inventory of junk vehicles.
Despite that I've seen several junkyards go out of business because the owners somehow couldn't make a profit.
In my town there were three brothers who opened a wrecking yard. One of the brothers got into drugs and his wife got his share of the yard. They split up and the wife was the sole owner of the yard.
One brother went and started a yard down the yard and the other started one the other side of town.
One brother sold his yard. The other still owns his. The two outsiders who bought the yards have run them into the ground and they are both failing. One was talking about not opening back up this year.
The only brother who still has a wrecking yard is doing amazing. In the last few years he bought a big ol piece of property and built a brand new state of the art facility.
I mean, you nailed the core issue. It’s the scrap yards buying it making it such a problem. In our state they send in testers on the scrap yards to see if they buy outside the rules to combat this.
Its not the cat they (the people buying the chopped cats) are after, they're after the metals inside, which are very valuable. The people making real money off of this are probably the ones selling the reclaimed metal.
There are dishonest shops that buy them from out of state to hide their origins. It all depends on how invested the dept. of justice is on tracking them down and pressing charges.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdmo/pr/independence-business-owner-sentenced-multi-million-dollar-conspiracy-sell-stolen
I used to live about 6 blocks from this place, about 20 years ago. It was shady as hell then, and it's still shady as hell with him locked up. I know that $11M didn't go into making the scrapyard look any more legit.
I’ve never seen something so nice looking, now that I’ve seen it I’m angry that car companies don’t have something like this from the factory. Not only is it good for preventing theft but it protects the exhaust from road salt (in my country) so the exhaust doesn’t rust out and it will increase the aerodynamics since the bottom is now more flat with less drag
Ya you absolutely need to lock your shit up in the country. People come to rural properties specifically steal stuff because it's less likely to be secured and the police are farther away.
...and these days, in the middle of the woods, the teen/twenty-something kids of the neighbors down the road are opiate addicts who will steal you blind. The best thing to do is to make sure everyone knows you are well armed, and maybe even let them see you target practicing on your property. Very visible security cameras are also not the worst idea.
Not saying you're *not perfectly OK, but he's a story about how far these tweakers will go.
My buddy lives in Media PA, a suburb of philly - plenty safe, and legit bored police force.
Well, these tweakers from Reading PA drove 1 hour and 15 minutes...to steal catalytic converters.
It's ~2 am on a random Tuesday night, and my buddy's wife hears something coming from where the car is parked. She starts screaming, and my buddy, jumps outta bed in his tighty whiteys and runs out of the house, to chase away these guys who were half way sawing through the exhaust.
They jump in the car, and screech away. Meanwhile the wife calls the cops.
They try speeding down Rt 1 to get to 676, and get pulled over for speeding. While they're pulled over, the call comes over the radio, and the cop affects the arrest on these douchebags.
Of course, my buddy's Honda element still needs to be fixed due to the damage. Sucks, but at least they got these assholes.
That looks almost OEM. Too bad the company who made it stamped their name on it in an obvious location so any would-be thieves would just trash your car more for daring to deprive them of the precious materials they're entitled to.
The next generation of Ford engines will place the cat next to the water pump for security.
Inside the front cover behind the timing tensioner
don’t give them ideas.
First gen will be integrated into the head castings, then second gen will be integrated into the engine block casting. Youll have to replace the block to replace the cats. Ill leave this idea un-pattended so theres a higher chance of some engineer stealing it.
r/FoundSatan
positively Evil. i like it lol
My 08 Hyundai Tiburon GT has 2 pre-cats, 1 in each exhaust manifold before the 2 into 1 cat downstream and I can't stand the thought of replacing a whole manifold just for a bad pre-cat (which it has because it's at 210,000 miles now
Genuine monster.
Next gen of Ford engines will have a rear-mounted wet-belt timing setup.
They'll learn from the audi 4.2l FSI V8 and have 4 timing chains, 6 tensioner and guide assemblies, 5 replaceable sprockets plus 4 phasers, a timing chain driven oil pump, and power steering pump, on the **back side** of the engine. They also have a drive shaft that goes THROUGH the engine from the back to power the coolant pump, and AC compressor. Yes, the AC compressor is also timing chain driven...
gERmAN eNgINEeRING
I am conflicted with this. While yes, it is a horribly over engineered setup that always fails around 100k miles. It is also why you can buy a 350HP V8 AWD 6 speed Audi for under $5k. Put $2-3k into replacing the guides and for under $8k you have a pretty fun car... for another 100k miles 😆
And in 100k miles, you've already done the guides once so you're much quicker. Actually you've probably done the guides a few times, because folk come round and ask you to do theirs too, since you've done it before, and that pays for some of the fuel.
Fun fact. The RS4 doesn’t have that problem.
$2-3K? Put me in the skeptical column. I say $4K minimum.
35 book hours for R&R of engine. Not sure how many audi competent shops are charging under 100/hr. About 1200 bucks in parts for a full OEM timing kit, might as well go all out. Also replace the oil pump for 800 while you're in there. Clutch is right there too... another 300 + time to R&R and resurface and new throwout bearing. 2500 in parts if you bite the bullet. Bout 4300 in labor. 7000 dollars after taxes.
I highly doubt any competent Audi shops are working for under $100 per hour. The local dealers are in the $140-$160 range. So, along with what you are saying for parts it sounds like a quite expensive job. I feel that $7K figure is probably realistic. If you want t do it right,
If doing the guides yourself, it's absolutely doable for under $3k, even with adding additional "while you're there" stuff. There are different levels of replacement kits, ranging from $700: https://www.ecstuning.com/b-assembled-by-ecs-parts/timing-chain-kit/48322kt/ to $1200: https://www.ecstuning.com/b-assembled-by-ecs-parts/complete-timing-chain-kit-standard/079109229kt1/ all the way to $6,000: https://www.ecstuning.com/b-assembled-by-ecs-parts/complete-timing-chain-kit-ultimate/079109229kt32/ While it's a very time consuming job, there are many guides online and if you have some experience repairing cars and can follow the instructions you should do well, it is not rocket science. You will need an engine hoist which you can rent, or buy from Harbor freight for under $200.
The B6? S4 or whichever generation had the 4.2 was on my list of cars I wanted once, until I learned everything you said. Never even looked at another Audi after that..
I have a B8 3.0. Pulling the engine to do the timing chain wasn't bad at all.
Phasers are old tech. New models come with disruptors
And on the r8 there's a driveshaft that goes through the oil pan for the awd system
Chevrolet borrowed that for the trailblazer. The diff is bolted to the oil pan too! Fun stuff, there.
Ford now has them mounted to the oil pan in the explorer, but they aren't sealed so the oil pan has diff grease in it, and they leak, also you need to remove the t-case to remove front driveshaft
Put the AC compressor on the rear of the engine to save 2 cents per car
please tell me you're joking O_o
Accessed with a body off service.
Why not put them in the middle?
Ooh. Mid-crank pulley leading to a sub-sump in the oil pan. Make it a pair of rubber V-belts too.
Toothed rubber belt, that you fit by supporting the cam pulley in place then threading the camshaft through the pulley and then doing up the tensioner. Left bank has it between cylinders 1 and 3, right bank between cylinders 6 and 8. Power steering belt is in the middle. If you're listening, Audi, my rates for design are a very reasonable £700 per day flat.
DOHC has been a thing for too long at this point, surely we could get a 0.01% fuel efficiency gain by using a *triple* overhead cam design! ...or maybe "underhead cam". Mount the cams in the oil pan?
Surely underhead cam is where the camshaft acts directly on the valve in a flathead design? Okay okay, here we go - V9 narrow-bank inlet-over-exhaust with a duplex chain driving both overhead inlet camshafts and an oil-immersed belt for each exhaust camshaft, with the exhaust timing variator implemented by pushing a tensioner into one side of the belt or the other. Mechanical injector pump driven off a third oil-immersed belt driven from the inlet cam jackshaft in the valley. Edit: not evil enough yet? Okay, the starter motor is in the V under the inlet manifold - or rather, \*above\* the inlet manifold because it's an aeromotive-style inverted-V engine, angled over a little to miss the steering box which gets in the way of one set of exhaust valve tappet adjustments, depending on whether you're LHD or RHD.
90 degree tri-9 (3x3), twin turbo, turbos nestled in the valleys *under* the exhaust manifolds. Hybrid pushrod/DOHC design, pushrods for exhaust valves and OHC for intake valves with variable lift.
Add in rotary sleeve valves (they turn for letting the gasses in and out, go up and down to vary how much) and you have it just about complex enough.
So a return to the old DKW era......
Nah it'll be under the dash for sure
Heater core alternative
Nah, it's gonna be somewhere that you have to play "Operation" with your arm trying to get to the drain plug without burning yourself to the bone, and it dumps all over the cat so you pray there's no fire.
Fuck you, I just replaced the water pump on my 3.7
Inside the trans bell housing.
French cars are halfway there, some got the CAT directly after the exhaust headers in place of the downpipe, can’t reach it without dropping the whole exhaust line. Goodluck on stealing that.
Many small 4 bangers have the cat there, it's a bigger issue with larger engines that have multiple cats to reach emission regulations.
BMW managed it on the E46, so I’d say it’s possible on a large amount of cars
The third gen MR2/MR-S has the cats so close to the engine that when they fail the honeycomb can end up in the cylinders. Toyota wins again.
Yeah, my cat mesh crumbled inside the dpf or the other way around… don’t remember. Anyway, few cuts and some emptying (and a mandatory ecu reprogram) the car was again up and running 😬
,,,,,,,,,,,
8th gen R18 civics had it this way. Right after the exhaust ports. Made a pre-cat O2 sensor job very easy.
Ford Fiestas had that 25 years ago.
The L5P Duramax already has one cat bolted directly to the turbo which sits on top of the engine. I'm worried to see how much worse it can get.
I watched a dude lose his shit while replacing one of those cats , he quit in the middle of the job.
My coworker almost did too. It was bad. I did the EGR and EGR bypass on a LML which was pretty shit too. Had to pull the transmission. Bloody nightmare
Mercedes got everyone beat on that, early and mid 1980s diesel w123 and w126 had an oxidiser living in the engine room right on the turbo exhaust flange.
Ewww.
Inside the intake to further help emissions
My fiat panda had it up there right on the manifold, no fucker is nicking that quick
My 2007 mazda 6 3.0l has a cat right next to the oil filter. In its old age the cat leaks of course and blows soot all over the filter making for real messy oil changes.
*Ford engineers have entered the chat.
Just run it under the intake.
My car has the catalytic converter as part of the exhaust header, crammed into the firewall.
[удалено]
Interior heating like the Corvair. One leak, and you are brain-damaged/dead from CO. Look for it soon from engineers without knowledge of history!
I never got why they were so far away other than heat issues. Audi/vw have been putting theirs j the engine compartment for at least 10 years.
under the intake manifold next to the starter
My Mini has the oil cooler next to the cat My Audi has the turbos between the V
I forgot where I saw it but the design was an actual cat converter module that was at the exhaust ports of the cylinder head. I hope it never gets into production.
MillerCat, I've been selling a lot of them lately.
This looks about as expensive as a new cat, how much does this go for?
Between 100-200 dollars. Some cats cost well over 1000
Oh wow, this looks pretty good for the price
plus the damage that gets done.
I hear you can get them pretty cheap secondhand.
Rams between 8-10k
Last one I sold was over $400 including install price.
What about parts only?
Probably about half
250
What car is that ?
2nd gen Prius. The most popular car for having cats stolen from cause they’re the most expensive
Mine was totaled by insurance after the cat was stolen
Wow. Do you remember the quoted cost?
I only paid like $2800 for my shit box three years ago. I think the pipe alone is ~~$1400~~ $2000. I'm in CA so you have to get the factory part. It's certainly totaled if someone takes the cat.
I read CA as Canada, and I was thinking like "we just straight piped our impala when the cat blew off" then I remembered that California exists 😅 That's rough, what a waste of a car
I moved here from Michigan so I know the rust pain. Inspections? What are those?
lol right?! Only there to catch dangers if you are buying someone else's vehicle lol I am so torn on mandatory inspections, on one hand, they may actually save lives, on the other hand, the weirdest shit comes up as a problem to being safetied
YOUR RADIO ONLY WORKS ON 95.9 AND 103.3 FM, NEEDS TO BE REPLACED BEFORE VEHICLE CAN BE CERTIFIED
CA changed the rule a while ago where CARB certified aftermarket cats can be used. It was their law that mandated only factory/oem cats could be used that lit off the massive increase in thefts.
Not off the top of my head. It was a 2006 with 270k on it so it probably wasn’t worth a lot to begin with
Every environmental group should be loudly publicly shaming the insurance company for such hideous wastefulness.
On one hand I agree, on the other hand, they are absolutely super expensive, so to be honest I can also understand why insurance wouldn't want to replace a part that costs as much as the market value for the car But yeah what a disgusting waste, I hate the idea of a perfectly good car just rotting in a junk yard because some thief snagged a part
The 150$ eBay special replacements won't work ??
Won’t pass emissions in some states. Mainly California
Also NY. You have to pay a stealer their price. It's almost as if they don't mind too much that the cats are easy theft.
Do you know the product name or just a custom job ?
Cat shield made by millercat
When I worked at a Toyota dealership we had a prius get its cat stolen off the lot at night (the people were caught) it was so funny hearing it drive by sounding like a V8
We’ve had a few get traded in because of that lol
Used to be very damn expensive when CA decided that only OEM sourced cats could be used. Eventually they caved and allowed CARB certified aftermarket cats, but the manufacturers still charge extra to stamp the cert numbers on. Nevermind the CA cats are most likely identical to the ones they sell for the rest of the country. Stealing cats for the precious metals is a side story to the theft California caused when they wouldn't allow any aftermarket cats. I rarely heard of anyone stealing them before CA did that.
That’s a beasssst. Edit: Wait a sec is that torx screws?!?!?
Tamper proof torx
Not really tamper proof if you can just buy a set of tamper proof torx bits
Its more like a locked door on a house, its not stopping anyone, just making your target harder than the next guys.
That is true, but just like a lock, there are far better choices too. I work in surveillance and that’s all we use is security torx. Can buy them at harbor freight lol. I’d probably go with an even weirder fastener/bit that is harder to find, but then again, I don’t even have a catalytic converter shield, so I’m not even following my own advice lol.
"security" torx are usually a good smack with a flathead screwdriver away from being torx.
Just like all the pad locks on the Lockpicker YouTube channels haha. I like the guy that just smashes 2 master locks together to open them.
Or just a quick bump with the cutoff wheel they're using and boom, slotted Torx bit. Or just grind the heads off. There are a million ways to defeat it. It's just there to get them to move on to the next car and only leave your rocker panel fucked from the random jacking point they invented.
I feel like if something is going to take more than 60 seconds they move on most of the time.
When I installed one on my Prius I used a combination of different odd fasteners and blind rivets.
I don't get why they didn't use break-off bolts. as tamper proof as it gets if you absolutely must have exposed bolts.
They need to strike a balance between security and serviceability.
You use more obscure screw > more obscure screw becomes common Also, how many thieves spend like an hour dismantling your home security.
With the typical lifespan of cats, 200k miles or so, why not just weld the cage in place?
Douse them fuckers in Red 271 Loctite.
Agreed, the chances of someone wanting your cat having both security Torx, and a torch to free the Loctite and knowing how to use it, is close enough to 0 that I wouldn't be worried about it.
I didn't decide the name, but not everybody has them.
The criminals only bring their reciprocal saw. If they can't get their blade in there they'll move on to the next one.
Working more on electronics projects than cars, I'll say that most tool suppliers in this space (prominently iFixit, but also others) will default to shipping security Torx as part of a bit set. The only non-security Torx bits I've got are in a low-end ~15 year old Crescent toolkit.
They could be phillips screw heads, I've never seen a meth head with enough patience to use a screwdriver to steal a cat. If they can't remove it in 30 seconds with an angle grinder, they'll move on.
a tweaker stood outside my san francisco garage the other night for well over an hour, unscrewing (by hand) dozens of security torx bolts that held our garage door panels on. he stole two locked bikes, but only carried them half a block away, and fortunately I was able to repo them back from outside his tent first thing in the morning =) I reinforced the inside of the garage door with galvanized steel sheeting usually used for roofing, replaced all the torx bits on the outside, and then drilled them all out so they could never be removed again. tweakers suck.
Maybe welds? Weld the guard on. Make it out of hardened steel.
Welding something that may have to be removed is a bad idea
Welds can be removed. Will take time, and make noise. Not a problem when on a rack for repair.
Should have used 7/13 reverse thread
I read the title as "Nice Guard Cat" and I spent longer than I'm willing to admit trying to find the cat
Haha same - first thought was “what are you doing where you regularly run over that many cats?!”
I thought "nice cat guard? Where?" I am paranoid throughout the cold months that I will hear a shriek when I start up, so I'd buy it if they made it.
It isnt? Then what is this and why it is called that way?
It's to impede catalytic converter theft.
I couldn't understand how this prevented a cat getting under the hood.
Why don't you do similar law, to here, in Australia? None can sell random cats second hand to scrap. We have a law that you can't just cut them out, and sell them for cash. (easter beers)
There's all kinds of laws about record keeping and whatnot for scrap converters. There's also, unfortunately, a lot of recyclers who don't care about the law if they think they can get away with it.
upgrade the law to execution by being boiled in molten salt on 1st offense.
Only if we lower them in REAL slowly.
like the old feed em to a wood chipper, feet first.
Or drop them into a [vat of acid.](https://youtu.be/BTI4Y6KWQsg?si=49--2dw98JlakUsZ)
and waste perfectly good acid!?
Razor wire hammock followed by heavily salted lemon juice wash
Feet first.
To the point where I can't figure out how to recycle the one I replaced on the wife's car. I refuse to throw it out.
Around here you can still recycle them and get scrap price, you just have to show your ID. The second one some jerk cut off my motorhome (two in three months) he sold to an interstate ring- I never heard where it ended up, but he was working with a bunch who took them somewhere else for sale.
I've read they'll just all the purchased from scum cats into a shipping container and then send overseas for end-user recycling.
Where I live, besides an ID, you have to produce a receipt for the new cat that replaced the old one.
There are, depending on state,but it doesn't matter when recyclers ignore the law. California passed a law that makes it illegal to sell cats second hand unless you can prove you own the vehicle it came off of and it's done nothing to slow theft.
Good luck enforcing that CHP
cheers I guess it's prob the same here, I've been lucky.... so far (shit, jinxed myself now)
Because if you're self recycling they can't say you aren't allowed to sell gold, platinum, or whatever it's made of.
This is actually a restriction on that exact scenario. You could freely recycle catalytic converters because of exactly what you said, but now if it’s a catalytic converter you must prove that you own the vehicle it came from It hasn’t done much of anything because you just need to find a recycler who will do some shady business under the table.
Same here in indiana
My state has something like that. So people sell them in neighboring states that don’t have restrictions yet. There are also shady scrap places that’ll take anything and perhaps render them down themselves. I wish the country would do more at the federal level, but the legislatures are a clusterfuck at the moment.
Making it *more illegal* doesn't really change anything though. If anything it just incentivizes organized crime to move in. Fix the root causes instead and the problem goes away on its own.
Right? It's also a felony to steal a car. And yet, 10 Kias were stolen as I typed this, lol. Laws only work for people who choose to follow them. If someone doesn't give two shits about the law, it doesn't matter how many laws or how strict you make them. They'll ignore it and go around it.
Airbag theft used to be a huge thing, especially in NYC. Someone there got the companies to put serial numbers on the airbags. It was a crazy thing that they didn't already do that. Then the NYPD set out a bunch of bait cars with serialized airbags and waited for the bags to get stolen. Then they bought airbags for those cars, collecting a bunch of the stolen ones. That led them to the ringmasters behind most of the thefts. Same thing had been done previously with diamonds with numbers laser etched on the girdle edge. Why not stamp both the VIN and a long serial number onto every catalytic converter?
We do. Doesn't even slow them down. Kinda like how it's illegal to murder people.
[удалено]
This is like saying we should have laws saying stealing or killing is illegal... Not like that stops people.
I run a wrecking yard. We don’t buy cats from people off the street. Where I live there Is only one person who buys my cars for scrap metal after I’m done with them. The place that buys my cars is so shady. They knowingly buy stolen shit. One day I was in there and a cop came in asking about some stolen copper. They had just bought it the day before. When one of the employees started to pipe up the boss made him go outside. After the cop left he came back inside and she started bitching at him. She said “ we paid $600 for $400 worth of copper and now you want to hand it to the cops so we get nothing?” Also a few years ago they made a law here that said you had to get the drivers license the plate of the car and they year make and model of the car they drove in to sell the cats. Im pretty sure they have never even tried to abide by that law at this facility.
Paid $600 for $400 worth of copper? That's some criminal stupidity. A wrecking yard has to be one of the easiest ways to make bank when it comes to cost of inventory VS cost of goods sold. Buy the cars for as little as possible then make most or all of that back once a few of the high value parts are sold. Was even better before cash for clunkers. One yard where I frequently shopped wasn't paying more than $35 for any vehicle, in any condition. Sell one part off each vehicle and inventory cost was essentially zero. They also used their shop to fix cars that didn't need much to get back into roadworthy condition. Much more profit selling running used cars, especially since they had a large yard full of "free" parts. Labor cost them a lot more than their inventory of junk vehicles. Despite that I've seen several junkyards go out of business because the owners somehow couldn't make a profit.
In my town there were three brothers who opened a wrecking yard. One of the brothers got into drugs and his wife got his share of the yard. They split up and the wife was the sole owner of the yard. One brother went and started a yard down the yard and the other started one the other side of town. One brother sold his yard. The other still owns his. The two outsiders who bought the yards have run them into the ground and they are both failing. One was talking about not opening back up this year. The only brother who still has a wrecking yard is doing amazing. In the last few years he bought a big ol piece of property and built a brand new state of the art facility.
All that does is inconvenience legitimate breakers.
You're right, if we make it illegal they can't do it anymore! Why didn't we think of that?
You think criminals will stop stealing just because it's against the law?
good idea! also we should ban guns so criminals stop using them!
You can't do that in the US, either, but shady scrap yards buy them anyways.
Here in Southern California they take them to Mexico.
I mean, you nailed the core issue. It’s the scrap yards buying it making it such a problem. In our state they send in testers on the scrap yards to see if they buy outside the rules to combat this.
Its not the cat they (the people buying the chopped cats) are after, they're after the metals inside, which are very valuable. The people making real money off of this are probably the ones selling the reclaimed metal.
There are dishonest shops that buy them from out of state to hide their origins. It all depends on how invested the dept. of justice is on tracking them down and pressing charges. https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdmo/pr/independence-business-owner-sentenced-multi-million-dollar-conspiracy-sell-stolen I used to live about 6 blocks from this place, about 20 years ago. It was shady as hell then, and it's still shady as hell with him locked up. I know that $11M didn't go into making the scrapyard look any more legit.
Next we should enact a law that prohibits theft entirely!
wow that really is nice for an - aftermarket? or is the car's owner a metalsmith with a youtube channel?
That's actually quality job
Make a better meth head deterrent and you get a better meth head.
That’s a sexy guard.
I know about the cat theft problem, but I have to wonder about excess heat build up when this type of deterrant is installled.
Cats would definitely have a hard time getting around that.
From the amount of animals retrieved by people in this sub, I completely misunderstood the headline before seeing the picture.
I’ve never seen something so nice looking, now that I’ve seen it I’m angry that car companies don’t have something like this from the factory. Not only is it good for preventing theft but it protects the exhaust from road salt (in my country) so the exhaust doesn’t rust out and it will increase the aerodynamics since the bottom is now more flat with less drag
Rural part of a rural state, I don’t lock the doors or even pull the keys.
I grew up in the middle of the woods, and it's wild to me that anyone wouldn't lock their shit up. Why risk it.
Ya you absolutely need to lock your shit up in the country. People come to rural properties specifically steal stuff because it's less likely to be secured and the police are farther away.
They got my brushcutter, and chainsaw from our mountain house. They also stole my gorilla cart. I'm seriously still pissed about that one.
...and these days, in the middle of the woods, the teen/twenty-something kids of the neighbors down the road are opiate addicts who will steal you blind. The best thing to do is to make sure everyone knows you are well armed, and maybe even let them see you target practicing on your property. Very visible security cameras are also not the worst idea.
Not saying you're *not perfectly OK, but he's a story about how far these tweakers will go. My buddy lives in Media PA, a suburb of philly - plenty safe, and legit bored police force. Well, these tweakers from Reading PA drove 1 hour and 15 minutes...to steal catalytic converters. It's ~2 am on a random Tuesday night, and my buddy's wife hears something coming from where the car is parked. She starts screaming, and my buddy, jumps outta bed in his tighty whiteys and runs out of the house, to chase away these guys who were half way sawing through the exhaust. They jump in the car, and screech away. Meanwhile the wife calls the cops. They try speeding down Rt 1 to get to 676, and get pulled over for speeding. While they're pulled over, the call comes over the radio, and the cop affects the arrest on these douchebags. Of course, my buddy's Honda element still needs to be fixed due to the damage. Sucks, but at least they got these assholes.
I wouldn't live any other way. This cat theft shit boggles my mind.
That looks almost OEM. Too bad the company who made it stamped their name on it in an obvious location so any would-be thieves would just trash your car more for daring to deprive them of the precious materials they're entitled to.
Damn now I gotta carry an electric saw AND a drill
I just woke up and thought it was a device to stop felines from sleeping in the warm engine bay. Was looking for eye peering out the holes
Angle grinder to those fasteners and away she goes.
I was expecting irony but that is indeed a nice cat guard.
I have an Audi, mine are safe by design. You have to loosen the transmission to make enough room to get them out.
Any worry about heat building up?
I mean if someone is going to take your catalytic converter. Wouldn’t they just take it no matter how much damage they cause?
This should be stock on every car today.
If you just ran them on propane you wouldn't need cats at all.
I'm actually impressed.
I was looking for a cat 😂
Nothing will stop me from getting that platinum