There’s an epidemic gripping the nation and mainly being ignored, unlike COVID-19. It’s the theft of catalytic converters from driveways and parking lots across the region.
Lake County is not immune to the scourge. Some days ago, a few Gurnee and Highland Park motorists woke to find when they started their vehicles, their SUVs and cars sounded like M-48 Patton battle tanks on their last legs.
One Gurnee motorist discovered the ear-shattering theft of the costly emissions control device on her aging Honda CRV. Catalytic converters, which reduce vehicle emissions, are found underneath a vehicle between the engine block and muffler. They are required on vehicles in order to pass state-required emissions tests in Lake County.
Law enforcement and auto mechanics say it’s easy for brazen “entrepreneur scrappers” to roll under vehicles and use cordless reciprocating saws to separate catalytic converters from exhaust systems. It takes less than two minutes for the theft, and for thieves the higher a vehicle is off the ground, the better.
From that metallic loot, catalytic crooks can earn between $50 to $150 and more per converter when taken to scrap yards. The antipollution devices have mere grams of valuable metals inside, including gold, titanium, copper, palladium and rhodium. The latter two precious metals are worth more than the price of gold.
For the Gurnee driver, it cost her nearly $2,000 to replace the cylindrical converter, along with an oxygen sensor, air-fuel sensor and various hardware. That’s about the average cost for the work done at garages in the area. Her auto insurance picked up the price of installing the new one after her comprehensive deductible.
According to the Des Plaines-based National Insurance Crime Bureau, the skyrocketing numbers of catalytic converter thefts makes Illinois the fifth most-targeted state in the U.S. Across the nation, thousands of catalytic converters are stolen daily, while the robberies spiked 300 % during the pandemic.
Honda, Toyota and Lexus — hybrids are preferred — are the bandits’ targets because those manufacturers’ converters have the most amounts of precious metals, one veteran Lake County mechanic, who has replaced dozens of catalytic converters, told me. He described the sound of a vehicle operating with a swiped converter as being ready for the straightaway at venerable Great Lakes Dragaway in Union Grove, Wisconsin, just over the Lake County line.
There are aftermarket, cage-like, anti-theft shields to deter thieves and buy some peace of mind. But determined robbers are clever, as we have seen from thefts of air-conditioning units from buildings across the region.
Automakers could also work on a solution to discourage the crime, like stamping the vehicle’s VIN number on catalytic converters. Of course, housing one’s vehicle in a garage is the best deterrent.
What is needed most of all, though, is a crackdown on unscrupulous scrap-metal buyers. Steeper prison sentences for converter thieves also should be increased.
Most states have laws penalizing catalytic-converter robbers even as legitimate metals’ buyers already abide by the rules. But with the amount of money involved, even with the tiny bits of precious metals inside the devices, many junkyards ignore the laws, turning them into black-market buyers.
There is a measure winding its way through the Illinois legislature, House Bill 0106, which would require licensed scrap dealers, parts recyclers and processors, among others, to keep records related to the acquisition or disposal of catalytic converters, including dates of sales, names and addresses of sellers.
Illinois legislators need to get behind that proposed law to make thefts of catalytic converters more punitive and increase penalties on scrap dealers who willingly accept stolen devices. Until then, motorists who are lawmakers’ constituents may become unwilling victims of the converter crooks among us cruising for easy scores.
Charles Selle is a former News-Sun reporter, political editor and editor.
Twitter: @sellenews
