With catalytic converter thefts nonetheless occurring, cities and regulation enforcement officers throughout the nation are working out of concepts on cease them. Sellers have additionally been reporting components shortages leading to months-long wait instances should you want a substitute. Now, ABC7 experiences that the Los Angeles Police Division is providing VIN etching as a strategy to cease thefts.
Utilizing an $8,000 Insta Etch machine bought with a state grant, the LAPD’s Northeast Division is providing the service to residents. Utilizing the machine, the division will etch the car’s VIN onto the converter. To go one additional, the division may also etch “Marked by LAPD” onto the converter as a “excessive visibility deterrent.”
Whereas the VIN etching will assist the division monitor and catalog converters which have been stolen or recovered, the division hopes the LAPD template will make thieves assume twice about stealing a automotive’s catalytic converter. “We use this LAPD placard template with the high-temperature paint and we apply, not solely the VIN etch, however we apply this LAPD warning, if you’ll, to potential thieves who get beneath these vehicles seeking to steal the catalytic converters,” LAPD Capt. Gary Walters informed ABC7.
The division is at present holding month-to-month etching occasions for residents and hopes to get extra funding to buy extra of the Insta Etching gadgets. It’s nonetheless to be seen how a lot of a distinction the etchings would possibly make, as thieves have proven that little actually stops them, they usually appear to get faster by the day. Each little bit helps, although, particularly should you’ve been a sufferer of catalytic converter theft and puzzled, in hindsight, if there was something you didn’t do which may’ve helped you keep away from the entire ordeal.