Okanagan Valley, British Columbia — Local B.C. inventor, Rod Newlove has created the Converter Defender alarm system with the hope of helping to reduce catalytic converter theft.
The Converter Defender alarm system is designed to include a 135-decibel horn—which is nearly as loud as a jet engine—and a sensor attached to the catalytic converter.
“Any movement at all in the exhaust system or tampering with the sensor sets off a horn,” Newlove said. “It will scare the people away — or draw attention to them anyhow.”
With catalytic converter theft on the rise, Newlove believes that his invention is one of many that could help to tackle the issue.
“They’ll crawl underneath the vehicle and Sawzall off the converter,” Newlove originally told CBC News from his workshop in Lake Country, about a 23-kilometre drive north of Kelowna. “They can make fantastic money for 10 minutes worth of work.”
Newlove said until the scrap metal black market is stamped out, motorists will likely continue to try to protect their catalytic converters with creative solutions like his.
“I’ve heard lots of good stories from shops about how it’s actually stopped thefts,” he said about his invention.
“[Buyers] have actually caught people running away from their vehicles when they’d been trying to remove them.”
