The 24 Hours of Lemons Forums → Bench Racing → What to do with extra cat converters
We have a few catalytic converters that have been removed from various race car builds over the year and want to recycle them. Didn't really keep records on the stuff so maybe they are worthless because of that but it still seems wasteful to just chuck them.
Thoughts? In California of course.
Not sure about Cali, but recyclers are paying top dollar for cats right now.
Do not throw them out.
Find a recyclers idk about bike cats but oem car cats are like 100-900 per cat right now ( after market cats get you like $10) most cats are closer to the 100 end, the expensive ones are off hybrids ect
I do not live in Cali but have never been asked for records on a cat ever, and I've turned in like 6 at once. This is a problem imo as cat theft is really bad. (All mine are legit I just didn't bother turning them in when metal prices were low, back in 2016 a subie cat was paid $25 in 2019 I got $150)
If Cali makes it hard bring em to a race and give em to someone out of state. (Hopefully for a cut lol)
Thanks for the ideas. I'll call some recyclers and see what they can do.
Alex, My experience was that they don't pay much. Or at least the online outfits I tried. There must be a pretty good profit margin in that business. But recycling is better than the landfill.
What online outfits have you used?
I'm also in CA. ~8 years ago I would sell cats off our cars for $50-100... now I would expect that to probably be at least doubled. However, CA has gotten ridiculous as they always do and implemented a bunch of laws that make it hard for you to sell it, but not necessary any harder for them to be sold on the black market by thieves.
I tried to sell a cat last year; I didn't try that hard, only called one place, but was told that because I didn't have any form of licensing that they would not be able to purchase the cat from me, even though I had a registration/title for the vehicle. Maybe sell em to the black market for $100/piece? Post em on craigslist or marketplace for a sketchy parking lot sale just as CA intended.
Ha. I'm going to avoid a black market thing and I suspect a great way to meet a cop is to advertise a cat for sale on CL. Really sucks that the landfill might be the only legal option.
Others I know have had success with rrcats.com. I have not tried them, but I also have 3-4 cats sitting around from race cars that I would like to recycle, I just haven't gotten around to it.
What online outfits have you used?
IIRC, the best offer came from www.rrcats.com
All the Cali teams who can't figure out what to do with old cats should "donate" them all to Lemons at one of the races, then have a special trophy for out of state teams, winner gets all the cats lol
Thunderhill thundersmog award?
I dunno what the criteria to win would be.
Maybe a raffle like the yoko tires thing. To qualify you have to race with a cat installed? (Might not get any entries lol,)
Or something else idk
Online sale or ebay to get the real $$, local scrap yards will only pay pennies on the dollar.
The 24 Hours of Lemons Forums → Bench Racing → What to do with extra cat converters