$500 solution to stealing a catalytic converter

In the face of the scourge of catalyst theft, the HGregoire Mitsubishi Laval dealer, in cooperation with Service de Police de Laval (SPL) and the company B-Shop, has developed a solution to discourage thieves.

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It is a stainless steel plate, sold as an option by a Laval dealer at a cost of $500.

“What we wanted to do, in the face of the problem, was to find a way to reduce traffic to the act, to make it more difficult for thieves,” Simon Morissette, prevention officer at SPL, explains.

This anti-theft plate is fixed in a way that it cannot be disassembled. In addition, it is very difficult to cut it.

“To steal a catalyst, the thief previously needed about thirty seconds. We lay under the car, cut on each side and left with the catalyst. With a board like this, that’s impossible,” says Simon Morissette.

“Even if we cut off the catalyst, we can’t remove it. To remove this plaque would require a very long and very noisy technique. It’s impractical for thieves,” he adds.

In Laval alone, nearly 300 thefts of catalysts are reported to the police each year.

At HGregoire Mitsubishi Laval, we had to make the decision to remove catalysts from all vehicles parked in the commercial yard.

Once the car was sold, the catalyst was refitted before the customer came to own the car.

“It increases dealer costs per vehicle,” says Philippe Lamarie, general manager of HGregoire Mitsubishi Laval.

Knowing that the catalyst alone is worth about $4,000, the dealer and his partners say they are confident that their anti-theft pad will prove to be an effective barrier against catalyst theft.

At the moment, the board is only designed to be installed on Mitsubishi-branded vehicles, but it could be adapted to other vehicles in the future.

The Laval Police Service also specifies that the catalysts can be dug up, in order to discourage thieves and make it easier to trace which vehicle the catalyst belongs to when authorities find it.

To see the full report, watch the video above.