DOVER, Del. - For most folks, when you start your car, you want to hear a smooth, low rumble out of the tail pipe.
But if your car wakes up sounding like a Top Fuel dragster, you might have been a victim of catalytic converter theft.
Catalytic converters are devices along the exhaust system of a vehicle that uses an array of valuable metals to reduce pollution from a car.
In recent years, market prices for these metals, such as palladium and rhodium, have been high, and ongoing global turmoil has kept those prices high, making them an attractive target for thieves, who can quickly flip them for several hundred dollars.
Experienced thieves can cut a catalytic converter off a car in as little as one minute.
In the Delaware General Assembly, House Bill 78 has advanced out of committee and is now on the Ready List for discussion by the entire Delaware House.
Among other things, HB78 would require enhanced ID requirements for buyers and sellers of the devices, restrict sales to licensed dealers, prohibit transactions by minors, and prohibit cash sales.
In 2021, Delaware State Police received more than 1,000 reports of stolen catalytic converters.
Seven of those were stolen from the Modern Maturity Center in Dover. The Center provides programs for senior citizens, and transportation to and from those programs.
"It was devastating," said Transportation Manager Tonya Newman. "To come into work and to hear that this has happened to the buses - all seven of them - it completely shut us down."
When a catalytic converter is stolen, victims are hit with up to $3,000 in repairs, and according to Delaware State Police Senior Corporal Leonard DeMalto, those converters have to be replaced immediately.
"It's also illegal to drive around without catalytic converters, so you're really stuck between a rock and a hard place if you fall victim to this," DeMalto said.
