Is it possible you're worrying too much about an unlikely scenario? If you're not parking in some ####ty neighbourhood, I'm sure it'll be fine. No sense stressing about it imo.
We live in a nice neighbourhood and our neighbour next door got their catalytic converter stolen while parked overnight in front of their house. I don't think anywhere is safe from this.
I always assumed they'd just target trucks and vans that are easy to get under. Sure, you can jack a car up, but why bother when there are FISO's everywhere.
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Funny story. Some bozos cut up the exhaust on some company vehicles. Didn’t get the catalytic converters though, just some valueless resonators. Goofballs
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No, no…I’m not sloppy, or lazy. This is a sign of the boredom.
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I just chopped the resonators off my car last week to give a little more sound. I should try to sell them to one of these monkeys as catalytic convertors.
Is it possible you're worrying too much about an unlikely scenario? If you're not parking in some ####ty neighbourhood, I'm sure it'll be fine. No sense stressing about it imo.
A buddy of mine just had his catalytic converter stolen from a parking lot at MRU.
Parked at noon, came out at 3 and it was gone.
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Captain James P. DeCOSTE, CD, 18 Sep 1993
How much are they worth to the thief? Seems like a lot of effort.
If the vehicle has enough clearance to slide under it's actually very little effort at all. You can be in and out in a couple minutes and the value is all dependant on how you sell it. Cordless recip and a good blade makes short work of exhaust pipes.
I sold a bunch to a guy (cleaning up my acres full of scrap cars )who actually was breaking them down on his own and selling the raw material and making very large profits. Even the most generic cat is worth 150$ as scrap right now but most newer stuff is way more.
Some cats are are reportedly getting cash scrap well above $500.
And it’s not even a couple of minutes. A good cordless recip saw and a blade, we’re talking 45 seconds; they don’t care if they cut into a wire harness or your floor boards. Toyota has started designing with theft in mind, and there are aftermarket deterrent/lock systems available for certain units.
Vigilante Justice is seriously the only deterrent. It’s like having your bike stolen, except more expensive to deal with and zero chance of ever getting it back.
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No, no…I’m not sloppy, or lazy. This is a sign of the boredom.
I reached out to Shell Canada this morning regarding the ethanol blends of their fuels, and very promptly got a reply:
Quote:
Thank you for reaching out to us.
Please check the information below:
• Bronze (87 octane) - up to 10% ethanol
• Silver (89 octane) - up to 5% ethanol
• Shell V-power Nitro+ (91 octane) - No ethanol
• Shell V-power (91/93 Octane) - up to 10% ethanol, only available in BC and Manitoba
Now that is interesting, as I was under the impression that Shell V-power 91 across Canada was always ethanol-free. Turns out only Nitro+ branded is ethanol-free, and the V-power 91/93 in MB and BC aren't.
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-James
GO FLAMES GO.
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Slightly off topic, but is a small amount of ethanol the reason the lower grades of gasoline cannot be used in small engines such as snow blowers?
Yes. You can use it, but it causes the fuel to gel if it sits for a few months, and clogs up your carb. It's aweful. Probably fine if you run a landscaping business, but if I don't completely drain mine before winter, it won't start in the spring. Never had a problem once I switched to Shell premium.
Yes. You can use it, but it causes the fuel to gel if it sits for a few months, and clogs up your carb. It's aweful. Probably fine if you run a landscaping business, but if I don't completely drain mine before winter, it won't start in the spring. Never had a problem once I switched to Shell premium.
I just use a fuel stabilizer and my equipment doesn't seem to have any seasonal issues. It seems to work but maybe that isn't enough and I've just been lucky all these years.
But my buddy watched the surveillance video and he said the vehicle was stopped by his for only a few minutes.
If you plan it right you can make a good days pay.
Even at $250 each, that's what you get for like <5 minutes of "work", so I can see why it's super lucrative. You could run off with around a G in less than half an hour. A couple hours work might almost be the equivalent of a month pay.
I've had BMWs, Acuras and Lexus's that needed premium that I've just filled regular for the past 20 years and nothing happened. No engine pinging or anything.
Of course you need it for high end sports cars like lambos and ferraris. unless that was what Torquedog was filling up.
I'm going to make some assumptions here:
1. The BMW, Acura, and Lexus vehicles you were filling up weren't using forced induction (no turbo or supercharging).
2. The models you were driving were not the top-end performance variants.
3. You drove largely in areas with elevations similar to or higher than Calgary's.
Naturally-aspirated engines -- as a result of our higher elevations here -- do end up having a lower actual compression ratio as a result of the thinner atmosphere here. Because of the lower compression ratio, you can get away with using a lower grade fuel than required/recommended by the manufacturer in high altitudes. This is why you can find 85 octane fuel as the 'regular' in Colorado, for example, whereas we have 87 octane as the standard across Canada.
So yeah, it's not uncommon especially here to get away with using lower grade fuel with no ill-effects for regular applications, but anyone running a high performance application should probably avoid it just to be safe.
Supercharged engines also see a similar drop due to their belt-drive system being tied directly to RPM and not the boost itself, and thus are unable to accommodate for this change in atmospheric pressure. Turbocharged applications don't have this limitation as they're free-spinning compressors and will bleed off excessive PSI once the target boost is reached. A S/C'd car designed for 8 PSI at sea level won't reach peak boost in Calgary, but a turbo'd car will no matter what elevation you operate in.
Now that said, yeah I was filling a high-end sports car (Aston Martin), so I'm not going to try and save a few with cheaper fuel in a 7,500 RPM V8.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Faust
Fact or Fiction?: Premium Gasoline Delivers Premium Benefits to Your Car
Yup, exactly the point I was making above; putting premium grade fuel in a car that doesn't require it won't give you any benefits, but not using it for an engine that is designed for it (by way of compression ratio or forced induction) is detrimental to its expected factory performance.
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-James
GO FLAMES GO.
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)who actually was breaking them down on his own and selling the raw material and making very large profits. Even the most generic cat is worth 150$ as scrap right now but most newer stuff is way more.
