This is how you know someone has stolen the catalytic converter from your vehicle: When you turn the key, instead of the usual reassuring hum you are assaulted by a deafening growl.
It doesn’t matter that you’ve never experienced it; you instinctively know what it means. Sure enough, when I switched off the car and got down on hands and knees to examine the undercarriage, there was big gap in the exhaust system where the converter should have been.
This falls into the category of things that are a lot less likely to happen in the Methow. The good news, as it were, is that it happened while I was parked in front of JB’s Seattle house, my west side “other place,” when the converter was heisted.
So now I am an urban crime cliché.
Catalytic converter theft is so rampant in Washington state that some legislators have proposed laws intended to make it less attractive. Good luck with that. It’s a lucrative market because converters contain precious metals that can be quickly resold. And it turns out that stealing a converter is remarkably easy (more about that shortly). Thefts across the state are expected to have exceeded 12,000 in 2022, according to an editorial in the Seattle Times which, as timing would have it, ran the day after I was victimized.
I wasn’t inviting extraction. I parked under a streetlight in a traditional neighborhood of single-family homes. It’s not dark. It’s not secluded. There is frequent traffic. But sometime in the early hours of Saturday, a thief managed to do his business undetected and unimpeded.
I had planned to return to the valley Saturday. Scratch that. Instead, many calls ensued: to Honda of Seattle, which was open and could take the car; to AAA to arrange a tow; to my insurance agent to report the theft. Then there was the ordeal of filing a crime report form on the Seattle Police Department’s cumbersome website.
By mid-afternoon the car was at the dealership, where Tyler, a friendly customer service representative (who is from Okanogan County), arranged repairs. Sparing the details, it’s expensive, even using an aftermarket converter that is much less spendy than the Honda version.
Tyler explained that my innocuous 2005 Honda CRV is a prime target for converter thefts, as are several other models of the same vintage. Newer model vehicles have additional protections, he said, and fewer of the valuable metals, so not as attractive.
Tyler showed us a You Tube video of a typical catalytic converter theft. A van pulls up behind a parked car, a guy gets out, trots to the car, drops to the pavement, reaches under the vehicle and extracts the converter with an electric saw or something similar, then hustles back to his van. Elapsed time: 24 seconds.
According to Tyler, converter replacement is a steady business. JB harrumphed: “You should stock them with the coffee filters for ease of access.” When I communicated the dilemma back to my staff at the newspaper, columnist Ashley Lodato messaged back that in Spokane a few days earlier she saw a billboard promoting “24-hour catalytic converter repair.” JB harrumphed again: “UCC. Urgent Catalytic Care.”
The necessary work on my car could not be completed before Tuesday, but the insurance process may drag things out beyond that. In the meantime, I’m stranded at the scene of the crime. Fortunately, I am able to work remotely. If you’re reading this, that’s how the paper got done this week. JB made chili and edited this column. She’s better at both than I am.
I don’t know what lesson to take from this. I don’t have an “it will never happen to me” attitude, but maybe I let down my guard. I could have parked behind the garage in the alley, which would have been less visible. And I should have remembered the history of that particular parking space, which we call the “kill zone.” I had a car stolen twice from that spot — once found unharmed, the second time trashed beyond saving. A 100-foot moving van, trapped at the T-intersection at the top of the hill, backed down over the top of JB’s car when it was parked there. And a delivery van skidded down the hill in icy weather, veered into the rockery on the parking strip and turtled. We warn visitors to seek other spots, but last week I caved to convenience.
Converter capers are frustrating and expensive. But at the end of the day, which I hope is soon, the Honda car and I will be OK. Catalytic? Yes. Cataclysmic? Nope.
