The consequences for the poor vehicle owner who has had his converter stolen far outweigh the scrap value of the cat that was snatched.  A replacement converter can easily run several hundred dollars for an aftermarket unit, and from $500 to $800 or more for some OEM converters. There’s also the cost of replacing the pipes on either side of the converter that were sawed through to extract the cat. A new head pipe and intermediate pipe can add up to a couple hundred dollars more to the repair job. Add in the labor to install the new exhaust parts, and the total bill to the vehicle owner can approach $1,500 or more! That’s a mighty expensive price to pay because some lazy bum crawled under your customer’s vehicle and sawed off his converter.

Most of the thefts are done with a battery-powered reciprocating saw, and the most likely targets are SUVs and pickup trucks with plenty of ground clearance. Toyota 4runners are one of the more popular v...