One of the most unique features of hybrid cars, like the Toyota Prius that I drive, is that it starts and runs so quietly that you barely know it’s running.

A couple of weeks ago, that quiet in my car became a quake, a loud violent rumbling that sounded like a truck engine having a coughing fit.

“It’s a bomb!” screamed my son, who may have watched too many John Grisham movies over my shoulder. Confused, but sure, at least, that it was not a bomb, I turned it off and back on again. More rumbling. It was so loud that it caught the attention of a kind man loading a moving truck a few parking spaces away.

“Is that a Prius?,” he asked. “That sounds like somebody stole your catalytic converter.”

He was right. I had just become one of the tens of thousands of people who’ve been victim to this fast-rising crime. State Farm, the largest insurer of automobiles in the United States, including mine, reported that the number of stolen catalytic converter claims with their customers rose a shocking 109% nationally between June 2020 and July 2021.

Overall, the National Insurance Crime Bureau says such claims rose 325% between 2019 and 2020. The problem is just as bad locally. According to the Baltimore Police Department, there were 506 reported thefts of catalytic converters in the city between Jan. 1 and Oct. 8 of this year, when my car started rumbling.

I happen to drive an older Toyota Prius, a hybrid and one of the cars most targeted for this particular theft. When I told Marvin Blume, of Marvin’s Muffler Works in Brooklyn, Maryland, what kind of car I drove, he simply answered “Whew. Sorry.”

I admit that I wasn’t entirely sure what a catalytic converter was and why they were so valuable until mine went missing, but this is what I found out. A catalytic converter is part of a car’s emissions control system, a muffler-looking device that turns harmful output like hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen oxides into oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide. All non-electric vehicles made since 1975 have one.

People are either swiping them to sell, or, more frequently, for the precious metals like platinum and rhodium that are inside. And because of their position under the car, they can be disconnected in a matter of minutes. Technically, any vehicle can be a target for catalytic converter theft, but specific ones seem to be hotter, like older Ford F-series trucks, 1997-2020 Honda CRVs, and Toyota Priuses like mine.

Priuses, like other hybrids, have a higher concentration of those attractive and metals in their catalytic converters, meaning that one from a 2007 Prius can be worth more than $1,000, versus $143 for one from a 2007 Ford F-150. This means that people who drive those cars, especially those like me who don’t have garages or driveways, feel like sitting ducks.

It’s become such a problem that there are more than 150 pieces of legislation being considered in the U.S. to curb these thefts, including new rules on how used parts are sold. In Maryland, one bill was introduced, but withdrawn this year.

I spoke to a bunch of Prius owners who dread turning on their own cars and hearing that truck cough, because they know of the frequency of the thefts and the cost of replacement, which averages upwards of $2,000. I was relatively lucky, if there’s any luck to be found in this situation, because my insurance covered all but my $200 deductible, and a rental that was less than $80.

My repairs were also relatively speedy, with my car back in just six days. Blume says there is a national backlog, and one of my coworkers has a brother in California who has been waiting for more than two months for the part.

Howard Sumka, the father-in-law of a family friend in Silver Spring, drives a Prius. After another relative had their Prius catalytic converter stolen, he “got so nervous reading stuff on the neighborhood Listserv” about the thefts, he preemptively had a shield installed.

“It cost $500 for the whole thing, and it ticked me off to have to pay that,” Sumka says. “It’s a design flaw in the car — it’s my understanding that it just takes a couple of cuts with a saw and it’s out. Some people say the shield doesn’t even slow them down all the much, but I was willing to make the investment.”

I called my regular mechanic, who installs the shields but doesn’t sell them and said it would be difficult to give me a quote on the work because different brands require different work. He added that thieves can usually tell the difference between catalytic converters original to a car and aftermarket ones like what I now have, and often pass those up because they aren’t as valuable. Then again, in the most Baltimore of crimes, Blume says he installed a new one on a crab truck “and they came back and stole it again.”

So besides installing shields that may or may not work, what are car owners supposed to do? Baltimore City Police put out a flyer with suggestions like etching the cars VIN number into the catalytic converter or parking in garages in well-lit areas when possible, which isn’t always easy in a lot of neighborhoods.

Maybe it’s safer to buy a car with a less-valuable catalytic converter, or one that doesn’t have one. I actually rented a Hyundai Kona EV while my car was being worked on. It was fast, new, and relatively cheap to charge, but finding places to do so safely and quickly was a whole other project. Environmentally that is something I’d consider when it’s time to replace the Prius, but they aren’t cheap, and I live in a row house without designated parking so I can’t install a home charger. Hopefully, there will be more public charging stations by then.

Blume thinks that the only real deterrent is for law enforcement “to take out the people that are buying them. If they (the thieves) don’t have a source to get rid of them, they won’t steal them. You stop attaching money to it, it’ll stop.”

In the meantime, I’m looking into that shield, parking in the garage near my office when the weather is nice enough to walk the mile or so home, and praying extra hard for spaces under streetlights or close to my house. And nervously turning on my car hoping that it just sounds like a car.

leslie.streeter@thebaltimorebanner.com