Catalytic Converter Thefts Are Rising Again and Could Cost Every Van Owner over £1,000

• Police data recorded a 36 percent rise in catalytic converter theft offences in one force area between 2024 and 2025, with vans now a leading target alongside hybrid cars.
• A replacement catalytic converter and fitting can cost over £1,000 on many popular models, and insurers can refuse to cover the full bill if an excess or modification clause applies.
• Thieves are driven by the platinum, palladium and rhodium inside the converter, metals that can be stripped from underneath a parked car in under two minutes.

The Theft That Takes Two Minutes and Costs You Thousands

A driver who parks a van or an older hybrid on the street overnight can wake up to a car that starts, drives, and sounds like a jet engine the moment it moves. The catalytic converter, bolted to the underside of the exhaust, has gone. Police force data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act shows catalytic converter theft offences rose from 11 in 2024 to 15 in 2025 across one force area, a 36 percent increase, with the number of individual converters stolen climbing from 13 to 15 over the same two years. The pattern mirrors what police forces have reported in cities after catalytic converter theft first spiked nationally several years ago, and it has never really gone away.

Why Thieves Target Your Exhaust, Not Your Stereo

Every catalytic converter contains small amounts of platinum, palladium and rhodium, precious metals used to convert toxic exhaust gases into less harmful ones before they leave the car. Rhodium in particular trades at a price that has, at various points, exceeded that of gold per ounce. Scrap dealers pay for the metal by how much it contains, not by asking questions about where the part came from, which is what makes a part worth a few hundred pounds in scrap value attractive enough to steal with an angle grinder or a reciprocating saw in broad daylight.

The force’s released data names the vehicles most often targeted. A Volkswagen Crafter van had its converter stolen four times across the two years studied, more than any other single model. A Renault Master van was targeted three times, and a Dacia Duster twice. Vans sit higher off the ground than most hatchbacks and saloons, which means a thief does not need to jack the vehicle up to reach the converter, cutting the time needed to pull the part off a parked vehicle to well under two minutes in many documented cases.

Where the Thefts Are Actually Happening

The same disclosure breaks offences down by location. Exeter recorded six thefts across the two years, the highest total in the force area, followed by Newton Abbot with five and Paignton with four, the last of those occurring entirely in 2025. Smaller numbers were spread across towns including Ashburton, Exmouth, Cullompton, Okehampton, Perranporth, Redruth, Torpoint and Torquay. The spread shows this is not a problem confined to one postcode or one city centre car park. A van or hybrid parked on an ordinary residential street in a market town carries the same risk as one parked in a city. The thieves are following the vehicle, not the location.

The force’s own data notes a limitation worth passing on to any driver trying to judge their own risk: officers log these crimes by typing the words “catalytic converter” into a free text field, so the true number is likely to run higher than the recorded figure, not lower. No-crimed and cancelled reports were excluded before the figures were released, meaning the published totals almost certainly undercount how many drivers actually lost a converter over the period.

Why Hybrids Are Just as Big a Target as Vans

Hybrid cars carry a catalytic converter built to work harder than the one in a petrol only car. The engine switches on and off constantly rather than running continuously, and the metal inside stays cleaner and corrodes less, which keeps it more valuable to scrap buyers for longer. Thieves and the scrap dealers who buy from them know this, and a cleaner converter sells for more than one from a diesel van that has covered 150,000 miles. A popular small hybrid hatchback or SUV, the kind sold in the tens of thousands across the country every year, has become as attractive a target as a work van, while the two vehicles have nothing else in common. A driver who assumes the crime only affects tradespeople and their vans is working from several years out of date, and the mix of models named in the disclosed data, ranging from vans to a small SUV, backs that up.

What a Stolen Converter Actually Costs You

A replacement catalytic converter is not a cheap part. Genuine replacements for common vans and hybrids frequently run into four figures once labour, a new oxygen sensor and an exhaust realignment are added to the bill, and that is before accounting for the time a van is off the road and unable to earn money for a self-employed driver or small business. A standard fully covered car insurance policy will usually pay out for the theft, but drivers often find out only after the fact that their policy excess, sometimes several hundred pounds, applies in full, and that an insurer can decline to cover aftermarket exhaust modifications that were never declared at the point of taking out the policy.

There is a knock-on cost too. A theft claim, even a successful one, can be recorded against the policy and factored into the premium at the next renewal, on the same basis as any other claim. A driver who has already lost a four-figure sum to an angle grinder in the night can end up paying more to insure the same car for years afterwards.

What You Can Actually Do About It

A handful of cheap, physical steps make a real difference against a crime that depends entirely on speed. A catalytic converter clamp or cage, sold by several manufacturers for most popular van and hybrid models, bolts around the converter and adds enough time and noise to the job that many thieves give up and move to the next vehicle. Having the converter etched or marked with the vehicle’s registration makes the stolen part far harder for a scrap dealer to sell on without the dealer themselves risking prosecution for handling marked goods, and several police forces run free or subsidised marking schemes for exactly this reason.

Where you park counts for as much as any hardware. A vehicle backed into a locked gate, parked nose first against a wall, or left in a garage rather than on an open street removes the easy underside access a thief relies on. Motion-activated lighting and a basic dash camera angled to cover the front of the vehicle will not stop a determined thief, but footage has helped several forces identify repeat offenders working the same postcodes night after night. Anyone who owns a van or an older hybrid, the two vehicle types this and other police data consistently flag as the most targeted, should treat a converter clamp as a basic cost of ownership rather than an optional extra, given what a replacement and a lost no claims bonus can add up to after the fact.

It is also worth telling your insurer directly that you have fitted a clamp or had the converter marked. Several insurers offer a small discount for recognised security devices, and even where no discount applies, having the fitting documented and dated gives you something concrete to point to if a theft claim is ever queried. Keep the receipt alongside your policy documents rather than assuming the garage that fitted it will still have a record years later. A five minute conversation with your insurer now could save weeks of argument over an excess or a declined claim later, on top of whatever it saves in stolen parts.

Sources:

• Devon and Cornwall Police: Catalytic Converter Theft Freedom of Information Disclosure