By: Rebekah Pipes
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (UATV) – This spring brought a rise in catalytic converter theft across the country. An increase in Fayetteville residents reported their stolen car parts.
It is common to park outside across Fayetteville, but with a rise in theft over certain parts. The Fayetteville Police Department suggests parking in more secure places than just the street.
Catalytic converters. What do they do and why are people desperate to get their hands on them? A mechanic at Seeburg Service Center, Nathan Allgood, gave me the answers.
Allgood says a catalytic converter is “the filter for the exhaust system so that the air that comes out of the exhaust doesn’t deteriorate the ozone layer.”
Although it may not look like anything special, catalytic converters contain precious metals that cost a pretty penny. Thieves sell components of the converter for large sums of money, leaving their victims the ones to pay to replace it.
Replacing a catalytic converter can cost hundreds of dollars depending on the type of car you drive, and for a college student, that’s no small fee. Christian Whitten, a senior engineering student at the University of Arkansas had his converter stolen shortly after Valentine’s Day. Whitten could not afford to fix the car part until mid-April.
After leaving his car parked outside a friend’s house one night, Whitten said he “started it up, and it was super loud like I thought something terrible had gone wrong. I was like looking around on the engine to see like if something broke because my car is older. After I drove back home I looked under the car and my catalytic converter was gone.”
Whitten and his brother replaced the converter on their own rather than having a mechanic replace it. Allgood said he understands this since “the price of catalytic converters has gone up significantly and it continues to go up.”
Whitten said he went to a muffler shop the morning after his catalytic converter went missing, to see how much it would cost to put it on, and “they said it was going to be over four-hundred and sixty bucks.”
While this type of crime is difficult to prevent, Srgt. Tony Murphy of the Fayetteville Police Department encourages Fayetteville residents to park in well-lit areas with security cameras and to continue marking their converters so potential buyers will know whether it was stolen.