With catalytic converter thefts nonetheless occurring, cities and legislation enforcement officers throughout the nation are working out of concepts on the best way to cease them. Sellers have additionally been reporting elements shortages leading to months-long wait instances in case you want a substitute. Now, ABC7 experiences that the Los Angeles Police Division is providing VIN etching as a option 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 automobile’s VIN onto the converter. To go one additional, the division can even 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 automobiles trying to steal the catalytic converters,” LAPD Capt. Gary Walters instructed 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 in case you’ve been a sufferer of catalytic converter theft and questioned, in hindsight, if there was something you didn’t do that may’ve helped you keep away from the entire ordeal.