There was a segment on the May 16 show where a 2003 Toyota Tacoma had its Catalytic Converter stolen. The CC was disconnected at the flanges leaving the hardware behind. Usually the CC is removed with a sawsall cutting out the pipes fore and aft of the CC.
If these are being taken for the scrap price, who is buying them? I think the auto parts recycler could not resell used CCs because the EPA designated them not to be reuseable i.e. they had a one car lifecycle. Can the junk yard sell them to refurbish/rebuilders as cores? So far I have not seen or heard of a metal recycler paying for used CCs.
So are they being sold black market to muffler shops or DIYers? Where have you heard of stolen CCs going.
Curious
Scrap yards buy them because they have precious metals in them that get recycled. They have no value as a used catalytic converter, it’s whats inside.
While I’m sure there is probably something of a black market for used converters, they are mostly stolen just for their scrap market value, which is pretty good because they contain platinum and palladium, which are both very expensive. Usually the scrap value that you get walking in with one to a recycling yard is about $100 for a typical sized converter-- pretty tempting for something that’s easy to steal and easy to sell.
I replaced the cat on my truck last fall. The local scrap dealer here only offered me $15 for the intact old one, he said they weren’t going for much anymore. I sold it on eBay for $35. That seemed to be the going rate for a domestic OEM cat, the foreign ones were higher.