On a chilly January morning, “Arthur,” one of San Francisco’s many departmental investigators, turned the key in his city-issued Prius. He was greeted not
with the anodyne hum of San Francisco’s most ubiquitous vehicle but “the roar of an M-1 Abrams tank.”San Francisco is a town founded on an extraction industry and, ever since Day One, chiselers have thrived by extracting from the extractors. More to the point: As anyone who drives an aging Toyota Prius knows, street parking in San Francisco is a bit like playing quarterback in the option formation or drinking from the well during a cholera outbreak — sooner or later, you’re going to get popped.
Aging Priuses, which have particularly valuable converters, are among thieves’ preferred vehicles. In San Francisco, you can hold your breath, inhale only when you spot an aging Prius, and go about your life normally. So, clearly, San Francisco drivers are taking it on the chin; more than half a dozen extremely busy area mechanics I spoke with are struggling to obtain Toyota catalytic converters for their customers.
while parked outside the San Francisco Police Department Special Operations Bureau on 17th and DeHaro. Big trucks, like this Ford-F-350 are also targeted by catalytic converter thieves. They’re easy to get underneath — and sometimes have two converters. San Francisco Public Works trucks have been especially hard hit.
San Francisco, per the Office of the City Administrator, has 418 Priuses in its fleet. Since fiscal 2018, 57 of them have either had their converters replaced, are waiting to have them replaced at Central Shops, or were put out of service due to a converter theft . But wait — there’s more. The SFFD move to go to a private vendor was described by the fire official as more expedient and less costly. It is unclear if other departments have similar arrangements, which would only add to the theft total.While the Special Operations Bureau at 17th and DeHaro is unmarked, it is unsubtly surrounded by police vehicles, as demonstrated in this April 2022 street view shot.
But he won’t do it. “If you have a California emissions system, you have to put in the right part,” he says. “If you don’t, the check-engine light comes on and it comes right back to me.”
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