Nicole Wood left her Hyundai Tucson at a dealership for some maintenance work and was shocked to find that thieves had crawled under her SUV and cut off the catalytic converter overnight. “I received information from police that my catalytic converter had been stolen while my SUV was parked at the dealership,” Wood told CTV News Toronto on Wednesday. Wood said her parents had the same thing in their Hyundai Tucson two weeks later at a different dealership. “My vehicle was one of five on the night my catalytic converter was removed and my parents’s SUV was actually one of nine vehicles hit that afternoon,” Wood said. The Halton Regional Police Department said catalyst thefts increased during the pandemic and there were 30 catalyst thefts in the area in the last six weeks alone. The researchers said that any vehicle parked outdoors is a potential target and that catalytic converters, which are connected to a vehicle exhaust system, contain precious metals, such as rhodium, platinum and palladium, that thieves can try to sell. “It happens in car dealerships. It happens in the streets of people. It happens in rental spaces and apartment buildings “, said policeman Ryan Anderson with the Halton police. “They can steal these inverters in less than 60 seconds,” he said. “They cut it and left.” While a thief could get up to $ 300 for a converter, it can cost the vehicle owner thousands to replace them. Wood said that while the dealership where the inverter was stolen agreed to replace it free of charge, her parents have been informed that they will have to pay for a replacement or go through their insurance. “My parents say they have to pay $ 4,500 to repair it, which is ridiculous considering they got it for a warranty issue,” he said. “And if they go through their insurance, they will have to pay a $ 1,000 discount.” In the US, some stores now engage in catalytic converters with recognition and sell inverter covers to prevent theft. Wood said she no longer felt safe leaving her vehicle overnight at a dealership. “I will take it back home and bring it back the next day,” he said. If your inverter is stolen, your vehicle would sound very loud, as if the muffler were missing. Halton Police recommend that vehicles be parked in locked, well-lit areas in a way that makes it easier to access the underside, for example, of a wall or other vehicle, and to use security cameras.
