Latest News - The Cat's out of the bag. . .

Precious metals in vehicle exhaust systems are the latest target of thieves in Salisbury, says a local repair specialist.

Seven vans were targeted in one night within a few hundred yards of each other in the city recently, with the vehicles’
catalytic converters cut out.

Now Andy Downes of the Bodytech autoservice centre in Netherhampton is advising owners to park their vans as close together as possible to hamper thieves’ access.

He is warning drivers: “Thieves look for vehicles with high ground clearances like vans and 4x4s as they are easy to crawl
under and reach the catalytic converter.

“Though the removal of the cat won’t necessarily disable the vehicle completely, its emission control is lost which makes it
illegal and it will be very noisy which can also be also illegal.”

Fleet owners contacted Bodytech for help, as evidence of the cat raids emerged.

Andy Downes said: “Fortunately, we were able to get them back on the road with replacement units in just a couple of hours
but any downtime is a serious loss for companies that depend on their transport.”

Though the stolen devices only bring in around £50 at a scrap yard, replacements can cost up to £1,000 on some vehicles.

Andy Downes says: “We can add owners’ postcodes onto replacement catalysts and we’re also looking into the micro-chipping
of valuable parts on cars. But really the most economical prevention is making vehicles difficult for thieves to get at.”

The value in a catalytic converter lies in the platinum, rhodium and palladium it contains, with the price of platinum reaching £2,000 an ounce at one point this year. It takes highly specialized treatment to extract the metals from a unit.

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