As I was heading to lunch after leaving my truck in a parking lot in broad day light on a busy street for a whole 3 hours I noticed something was odd as my yota roared to life as never before... I popped the hood and looked under the vehicle to find my cat surgically removed!!!

Apparently tweakers/transients and the likes have targeted Tacoma cats for the little platinum that can be extracted from them. The muffler shop I was at was totally out of cats as I was the third one that day alone!!! Its an expensive repair as OEM cost for part and installation is $1200, with a $500 deductible I got $600 and purchased a header and cat from LC engineering.

I just wanted to give a heads up on a growing theft problem in the greater Phoenix area. Keep an eye on your cats...

 

i pity you people who have regular emission tests. unlike here and in Alberta Canada, you can do as you please. and a CAT is not required, nor is a muffler. sorry to hear you gotta spend so much for a replacement, thats why i had mine removed, way to much to replace if i hit it on the trails or i it got stolen. hope that doesnt happen to you again.

 

in my town we are having the same problem and thats why i fear parking my lifted toyota with 33's cause the cat only has 6 bolts and can be seen easily just standing 10ft away too many tweakers at my school.

 

those cat's are worth some coin $120 I think.

 

There are too many tweakers where i work. But luckily for me I work on commercial construction site (wind farms), so they will steal the copper.

I think our biggest loss in one day was 90,000 dollars worth of copper, they stole all of it out of one of the towers that were laying on the ground.

 

i hate tweakers. stoners i can stand cuz they only get hungry and want to watch tv. lol. and what sucks is if you catch tweakers takin ur cat, theyd prob pull a friggin gun or knife on you thinkin YOU are in the wrong by stopping them. grr.

 

the same thing just happened to me last night scooby! wish i would have read this posting before today. Phx PD said they have been having a lot of calls about people taking their cats.

 

They cant get mine off, I have a skid over that area now..

 

Been thinking about sawing mine off, and having the autos/metal class weld on a straight pipe for me. Hey I need money!

 

Let me guess, those of you with cats stolen are either in California, or New England. It is endemic in those areas. Do as search on cat or cat theft, and you will see we have a gazillion posts just like this about a cat being stolen.

The common advice is to get an aftermarket cat - high flow. Downy makes em I think. They aren't worth a darn to thieves. Only Toyota OEM cats are valuable....

 

Thats happening around here to. I got a cat in the garage for my moms mercedes and i dont think shes gonna use it. I should ask her if i can have it

 

If I walk up on someone stealing anything of mine, my .45 auto will already be pulled. If they even attempt to pull a weapon on me....or even shift their eyes to fast one way or the other....just flinch & I'll put some dates on their stone; if more people would stand up for themselves & fight back, crime would taper off significantly.

A guy killed an illegal mexican crawling through his window a few doors away from my house just last month & like magic I stopped seeing as many "homies" walking down the middle of the street & obstructing traffic, stopping in front of houses & gawking (seeing what they could come back & steal at night). It's the trickle down effect, the more criminal blood that trickles down the street in your neighborhood the fewer criminals you'll see.

 

Why cant they just cut the exhaust pipe? does your entire exhaust have a skid on it?

 

Crap. Someone stole my cat at a subway commuter lot.
I checked the other tacoma 12 spots down from me, got him too.

Worst part, they cut around the flanges...means I need a front pipe, cat and what ever goes back after that. 3 peices. Probably over 1k at the dealer.

ers.

 

Just go to a local muffler shop and get a flowmaster hi flow cat.

They should be able to do it for around 150bucks.

 

Does the cat really need to be in place? Some shadetree mechanic told me that it was needing replacement and thats around 280 bucks.

 

It does not need to be in place to make the truck run , but if you dont want to be breaking the law yes you need to have one installed.


what truck are we talking about here.

 

Sorry for the delay, it is a Toyota 4 Runner model SR5 4x2 with 188k miles on it. Everything else works great.

 

+1,Id LOVE to catch some POS stealing from me.