[KD Hawaii98]

Do you know any good reputation company that does catalytic converter painting ?

[RocketRider]

If you feel like a DIY solution VHT sells a high heat paint in several colors including red. You don't need 100% coverage. Paint what you can access and then scratch your VIN into the wet paint before it cures.

bob

[Packrat1]

Or have a Cat Shield installed. The best one I found was Miller Cat. I had them installed on a 2008 Prius and a 2012 Sequoia. Sunset Auto on Boulder installed for me. They were way cheaper than the Toyota dealer.

[KD Hawaii98]

Originally Posted by Packrat1

Or have a Cat Shield installed. The best one I found was Miller Cat. I had them installed on a 2008 Prius and a 2012 Sequoia. Sunset Auto on Boulder installed for me. They were way cheaper than the Toyota dealer.

how much?

[Packrat1]

As I recall $230 for aluminum or $310 for stainless (I got stainless) and $270 for install. If you get your catalytic converter sawed off it will cost you $2,500 to have a new one installed at the dealer. My deductible is $500 so I figured it was worth it. The Sequoia cost about $150 install more parts.

[moguldreamer]

I have to ask. Why do you want to paint your catalytic converter?

[RocketRider]

Originally Posted by moguldreamer

I have to ask. Why do you want to paint your catalytic converter?

In theory if you paint your catalytic converter and scratch your VIN into the paint it makes it harder for a thief to sell because the buyer will be more suspect of a painted CAT ans possibly do research on the item before forking over money to the thief. IMO if a person is buying CATs then they won't care what color it is, they are just as bad as the thieves in most cases.


bob

[moguldreamer]

Originally Posted by RocketRider

In theory if you paint your catalytic converter and scratch your VIN into the paint it makes it harder for a thief to sell because the buyer will be more suspect of a painted CAT ans possibly do research on the item before forking over money to the thief. IMO if a person is buying CATs then they won't care what color it is, they are just as bad as the thieves in most cases.


bob

Thanks.

On a different thread over in the automotive forum, people say thieves don't resell the CATs; they open up the stolen CATs and sell the precious metals.

[Packrat1]

Henderson PD put on an event last year where a local auto service center engraved the vin into the cat converter for free. Of course that is only good if they are in possession of it and haven't destroyed it yet.

[robr2]

Originally Posted by moguldreamer

Thanks.

On a different thread over in the automotive forum, people say thieves don't resell the CATs; they open up the stolen CATs and sell the precious metals.

I doubt Skippy the tweaker is going through the process of extracting the metals from the ceramic core inside the converter. It takes either a smelter or use of nasty chemicals to get the metals.

For kicks, I skimmed a 77 minute video of a guy who extracted $330 worth of platinum, palladium, and rhodium from 10 converters using chemicals, torches, etc. It took him about a month to do so.