Catalytic Convertor Protection
March 24, 2021
It’s important to Protect your Catalytic Convertor. Our neighbor had her Catalytic Converter stolen off her old Prius, she was forced to buy a new car. OK, that really got our attention. Apparently Catalytic Convertors are very expensive to replace.
Last year we gave our daughter, my old Honda Civic. We had plans to purchase another car, but surprisingly functioning with only one car during Covid has been easier than expected. But it is getting double duty with one or both of us driving it daily. With only one car between the two of us right now, a loss of use would seriously hamper us.
Catalytic Convertors yield valuable metals, Platinum, Palladium and Rhodium. More valuable than Gold, thefts in LA County, particularly the Westside and North East areas are currently experiencing a large amount of thefts. Over 3000 in 2020. Typically the “bad guys’ come in the middle of the night and can cut off your convertor in under 5 minutes. We wouldn’t even notice it until we tried to drive the car.
With that in mind, in feel it was important to protect your Catalytic Convertor. So we started looking into ways to protect our Prius’s Catalytic Convertor. Though our insurance would cover the loss of our convertor, we still have a $500 deductible and would experience the unexpected lost use of our car.
We first thought about soldering it. But a reciprocating saw can cut through that security fix “Lickety Split”. We scoured the internet looking for ideas, but weren’t super happy with what we found. We then ask our Prius guy at Electric Avenue in Silver Lake what they could do. He said he could install an after market lock at about $485.
Feeling it was well worth the cost, we decided to do that at our next servicing. Our little Prius went in for it’s regular servicing and we got our catalytic convertor protection. Now I don’t have to worry about it. Money, we believe was well spent.
If you drive a Prius, or any other electric hybrid, we highly recommend Electric Avenue in Silver Lake, for much more than just a Catalytic Convertor protection. They seriously are the best mechanic, car servicing company we’ve ever dealt with.
Now we have to research protecting our old Honda Civics catalytic convertor. Life in L.A. always has challenges. Hopefully we circumvented a potential problem.