San Diegans Beware Catalytic converter thieves are at it again

So a friend at work comes in today and says that his wife had her 2000 4Runner parked in a hospital parking lot and came out and started it up and immediately called him to say the engine sounded "broken".

Turns out that in the middle of the day somebody crawled under it and cut out the Cat. So it was running open exhaust. Insurance covered it as vandalism although they wanted him so have rebuilt cat installed.

Just thought I would pass this on to you all. I have been told the state of California has a used Cat buy back program that is motivating this type of theft.