were have a lot of catalytic converter thefts in bexley area at the moment. they r doing this with trolley jack and angle grinder in under a minute.  can anyine rell me if my car has one.   its a 2013 mk3 2.0 tdci with dpf. thanku.

Nope. Only petrol models (including hybrids) have a cat. Put a big sticker on saying it's a diesel and you'll be fine, unless they decide to start stealing DPFs.

30 minutes ago, erictcleric said:

Nope. Only petrol models (including hybrids) have a cat.

That's not true at all...

It has a cat and a DPF. The cat is part of the downpipe so it's pretty hard to cut out.

My daughter's Vauxhall Movano 2.3 diesel has had security bars fitted to the Cat to try and lessen the chance of theft. Even has window 'stickers' not sure if they help.

 

so. it has not got one and it defo does has one.   as long as its not easy to remove with a grinder ill keep my fingers crossed.  thanks guys

2.0 TDCI cat is pretty easy to access as it's right underneath.  Though the subframe might stop them cutting the front end of the pipe.  Might be worth checking with a mirror for peace of mind.

1.6 TDCI cat can't be accessed from underneath at all as it sits in front of the engine, behind the radiator.

Either way, diesel cats are low value and the DPF core is totally worthless.  If they're proper organised gangs they'll be after specific cats that they know will be worth nicking.  Prius ones are really easy to nick.  Chances are they won't go for cars older than 10 years either, aftermarket cats are barely worth anything so don't want to risk ending up with one of those!  Like attempting to nick petrol from a scruffy 20 year old scrapper...chances are there's only a fiver of fuel in it!

1 hour ago, TomsFocus said:

Chances are they won't go for cars older than 10 years either, aftermarket cats are barely worth anything

I thought they were stolen for their scrap value (platinum) so age would be immaterial??? 

He’s saying if it’s an old car it might have had a cheap rubbish replacement cat put on it which is not worth much for scrap

thanks again guys.   tom i shall get out there and have a gud look.   

12 hours ago, alanfp said:

I thought they were stolen for their scrap value (platinum) so age would be immaterial??? 

Genuine cats have a large amount of precious metals in them (not only platinum, rhodium and palladium as well) to pass strict emissions regulations for when the cars are brand new.  Aftermarket cats are only designed to pass MOT, they use very little precious metal...  When I was stripping cars 10 years ago, aftermarket cats were only worth about a fiver!