Pursuing power, cars' cats come off

Since emissions testing has ended, more people are ripping out their catalytic converters. But beware: It's illegal to be without one.

By CRAIG PITTMAN

© St. Petersburg Times, published August 1, 2000

Two or three times a day the phone rings at the muffler shops around Tampa Bay, and the caller has a simple question: "Can you cut my cat off?"

Now that the state has stopped its annual tailpipe tests of auto emissions, auto owners in Pinellas and Hillsborough counties have begun beseeching repair shops to remove their cars' catalytic converters.

There's just one problem: It's against the law to tamper with the federally mandated emissions-control system to allow the engine to spew out more air pollution.

Mechanics face a $2,500 fine for removing a converter, and drivers caught without one can be charged with a second-degree misdemeanor and fined $500 fine.

So Kelly Senecal at Muffler City in St. Petersburg says he tells all his cat callers: "Sure, I'll do it -- for $10,000." That's usually enough to discourage further discussion, he said.

Some of the callers mistakenly think that because the state stopped checking their emissions system on June 29, they no longer need their converters, said Darryl Perry of Pro-Fix Muffler and Brake Center in Pinellas Park.

But federal law still requires the pollution prevention equipment. In fact, mechanics say if anyone brings them a car without a converter, they are required to install one. That could add anywhere from $100 to $130 to the cost of a repair job.

Automakers and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency worked out an agreement requiring the converters in every new car starting in 1975. EPA officials say that the equipment was in large part responsible for a decline of one-third to one-half in most air-pollution emissions in the United States from 1970 to 1990.

When Florida began requiring annual auto emissions tests in 1991 in six counties, the tests caught a large percentage of drivers tampering with their catalytic converters. By last year only 9,600 of the more than 442,000 cars that failed the tests, or about 2 percent, did so because someone had tampered with their converters.

This spring the Legislature voted to end the $10-a-year tailpipe tests, and Gov. Jeb Bush signed the bill and declared the tests an unnecessary burden to motorists.

Christine Mack of Mad Hatter Mufflers in Tampa said the number of calls about having converters removed started picking up two weeks before the testing ended, around the time Bush signed the bill.

At an EPA hearing on the matter two weeks ago in West Palm Beach, a South Florida auto-parts store owner warned that many people were already ripping out their converters, leading to increased air pollution.

"Whatever improvements you've had in the air quality are going to backslide," predicted Gary Zap of Boca Raton.

No reputable repair shops are willing to do the work, but there are some shade-tree mechanics who don't shy away from it.

"Everybody's cutting them off like crazy," said George Bleasdale of Clearwater Muffler and Brake. "Everybody wants a race car." If state inspectors went around sticking a mirror under people's cars, they'd make a fortune," he said.

Mark Zimmerman of Largo, an employee of the St. Petersburg Times printing plant, said he has pulled converters off a couple of vehicles, but only for people who wanted to soup them up for off-road use, not for highway driving.

"It's real easy," he said and explained how to unbolt two clamps and replace the converter with what's known as a "test pipe" that can be bought at auto parts stores. The result, at least on older cars, is an engine with more power, he said.

But on newer cars pulling the converter can foul up the engine. That's because the manufacturer tunes the engine and sets the computer based on the converter being in place. To take it off throws everything out of whack.

"If you're going to drive every day on the highway, it's better to leave that on there," Zimmerman said.

- Times researchers Kitty Bennett and Cathy Wos contributed to this report.

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