Quote:
Originally Posted by ngoma
Sidenote: Bit of a change in routine for them as they have recently been mostly busy replacing catalytic converters for victims of rampant CC theft in this area.
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Common everywhere now seemingly. It is an infuriating problem as the obvious root cause (to me, IMO) is the scrappers buying the stolen goods and providing a market for the thieves. They have to know, don't they? The same guy shows up over and over with cats that were obviously buzzed off in a hurry, and they are happy to buy them each time?
Apparently the vehicles that get hit hardest are pickups and SUVs since they sit higher, the easier for a thief to slide underneath with the sawzall. Thus I have heard it is often someone's business vehicle, a work truck or van, etc that they depend on for their living. Not that that's any worse than someone's commuter vehicle, unfair either way. But maybe one way to avoid it is to drive a regular car instead of a truck or SUV.
I actually just this winter bought an old mid 90s Land Rover as a 4x4 snow beater, cheap, after its PO parked it in downtown Billings and came out to discover the cats were gone. Sounded like a ski boat when I went to see it and start it up with open headers on the old Buick/Rover V8 gas hog.
But felt terrible for the owners as they had obviously tried to take care of the truck and put a lot into it, and this was the last straw for them. So in some ways the cat theft was a windfall for me since it made the truck worthless ($2000 to get new Y pipe with cats from Rover dealer). Had my local muffler place do some straight pipes in place of the cats since for my purposes this works OK and no emissions testing here of course. It is a miserable reality for folks to face this though. Perhaps good business for the muffler shops.
ngoma looks like good work done on yours for $90! My wagon has the same setup. Straight pipe where the front muffler/resonator was, done before I got the car so always been that way. I have never been able to tell that it sounds any different from one with the full factory exhaust.