14 CATS stolen in 4 days

[Welly]

Reading my local rag last night there has been a gang of thieves in Market Harborough stealing CATS from cars eggsauce systems and selling them on to scrap dealers at £150.00 a pop

Apparently there are some untrustworthy scrap dealers (really?) who collect CATS and sent them to Eastern Europe and China for the precious Palladium and Platinum metals to be recovered (about 2 to 3 grammes per CAT).

these CATS are getting valuable to these people and only take seconds to remove

Seconds? they should get a job at Kwik Fit instead

So watch out, it could be coming to your area!

Biggest target is cars left overnight in car parks and industrial estates/businesses.

[teamster1975]

What the hell is this world coming to.
I got a call from a customer (on his mobile!) saying that his internet and phones had gone down, it turns out that pikeys had pinched a load of the BT cables to flog for the copper

[steve_earwig]

They've been doing that for years They tend to open up a man hole and pull out whatever they find, be it a 10 pair local cable or a 4,800 pair main.

[Welly]

I know what you mean, and it'll get worse too.

Imagine the fright you would get when firing up your car with no CAT

[teamster1975]

They've been doing that for years They tend to open up a man hole and pull out whatever they find, be it a 10 pair local cable or a 4,800 pair main.

First time I'd come across it to be honest!
I wouldn't envy you making all those ends off again Steve, the bastards
I think this one must have been a fair old size, it took out a whole road

I know what you mean, and it'll get worse too.

Imagine the fright you would get when firing up your car with no CAT

That's what my bike sounded like before the beer can bandage!
Good news is the new eggsauce arrived on Monday so it's all fixed and passed its MOT yesterday with flying colours!

[Welly]

They've been doing that for years They tend to open up a man hole and pull out whatever they find, be it a 10 pair local cable or a 4,800 pair main.

Hey don't overlook the manhole Stevie - they're worth a bit too now

[teamster1975]

Hey don't overlook the manhole Stevie - they're worth a bit too now

My god, don't go there
The biker worries about a wet man hole cover being slippery, how about riding over a bloody hole instead

[steve_earwig]

One road is probably a 50 pair, with the price of copper these days it's probably well worth it. A mate of mine was issued with a Frod Cargo with a winch on the back, he used to spy out UTR (unable to recover) lead cables on the plans, recover them and flog them as scrap, used to make quite a bit at it too.

Actually, when cats first came out and I read they were stuffed with precious metals I expected them to go missing, it's odd it's taken so much time. I don't know if the price of these metals went up or the processes to recover them got cheaper, maybe both.

[mbell666]

i don't know if the price of the metals in the cat has gone up, but in general scrap metal has. can now get about £100 for weighing a car in, i can remember a few years ago you where lucky to get £20!

[Welly]

Teamy I'm being serial - they really are knicking manhole/drain covers, it helps with the weigh in.

Go to some industrial estates on a Monday morning and the road will be peppered with missing covers

[teamster1975]

Teamy I'm being serious - they really are knicking manhole/drain covers, it helps with the weigh in.

Go to some industrial estates on a Monday morning and the road will be peppered with missing covers

Holy sh1t!

[mjb]

these CATS are getting valuable to these people and only take seconds to remove

Seconds? they should get a job at Kwik Fit instead

If you're not concerned about keeping the downpipe/exhaust/floorpan intact, aye. Thinking about it, with a decent trolley jack and a cordless angle grinder, you could be done in about a minute

[Welly]

I was thinking about what they would use to whip the CAT off? you'd never get the bolts undone would you? I thought maybe a small oxy/acetylene torch but that might attract attention although an angle grinder on an exhaust tube isn't exactly quiet is it

[mjb]

I was thinking about what they would use to whip the CAT off? you'd never get the bolts undone would you? I thought maybe a small oxy/acetylene torch but that might attract attention although an angle grinder on an exhaust tube isn't exactly quiet is it

And they care? Exhausts are fairly thin bits of pipe so it'll take just a couple of seconds to make the 2 cuts then just lob the thing out to their mate, jump out and chuck the jack in the back of the van and bugger off. Bastards.

There's got to be a good solution to this. just to make it not worth them nicking yours...

How about getting a big thick bit of steel welded to the cat and the downpipe - high enough that you can't get to the pipe on its own?

[teamster1975]

Teamy I'm being serial - they really are knicking manhole/drain covers, it helps with the weigh in.

Go to some industrial estates on a Monday morning and the road will be peppered with missing covers

That's been in our local papers recently - there have been loads gone missing, I think especially the Bulkington/Shilton side.

Oh my gawd