Where can I find Catalyitic Converters? - Page 2

Where can I find Catalyitic Converters?
Any Park and Ride lot that doesn’t have a bunch of cameras.
And a lot of stupidity and a cordless sawsall

I would like to point out several things. First, in many states you can not sell a Cat unless you have a special license. Our affiliated company is an automotive core company. We have to have a copy of your license or we can not buy your cats. Also, while the margins on cats is small and yes, there is a ton of competition, there is still a great market for the rest of automotive core. Most of our core guys buy the parts for 50% of what they get from us. Many of them make a very nice living. The key though is knowing what various parts are worth. Many of the most successful core guys got jobs at a core company for 6 months or more to learn all the parts.

the best place to sell them is to a core buyer (or me) do your homework

now as to the orignal ?? muffler shops shops that build / fabricate racecars aftermarket exhaust shops and perfromace sho[ps seems to have the originals on hand be prepaerd to walk in the with a pricelist knowledge and an assload of cash because it"s the only way your getting them.

definition of assload of cash

yes you will need tens of thousands

for me, simple as 1,2,3.
1 buy old clunker or pos car (piece of ****) (with oem cat)
2 remove
3 sell at yard (yes they buy these too)
repeat
then you will get assload of cash

dave is right but to buy just convertors thius is a slow process

Yesterday was my busiest day yet for buying cats. I bought 111 of them at an average of $27 each. Keep in mind that they ran the gamut from aftermarket to exotic. I made my company a $2000 profit in about an hour and a half that it took me to sort and grade them. The two customers that brought them left with a pocket full of money and a smile on their face and I got a reprieve from sitting at my desk for a few hours. Win/Win!

summary of info posted so far

scrap yards rip you off, sell to a core buyer
core buyers visit almost all repair shops they can find
the core buyer i sell to carries like 10 grand or more with him, how do you compete?
there are a lot of different cats, and you have to know them by sight or you might as well shred your money

Originally Posted by MattInTheHat

summary of info posted so far

scrap yards rip you off, sell to a core buyercore buyers visit almost all repair shops they can find
the core buyer i sell to carries like 10 grand or more with him, how do you compete?
there are a lot of different cats, and you have to know them by sight or you might as well shred your money

You should say that SOME scrap yards will rip you off. I personally work on $3-$10 margins per cat. I live by the addage that you can shear a sheep for life, but you can only skin it once. So if I ripped a customer off he would take his business elsewhere if he found out. Then where would that leave me? I would have gotten it over on him once, but he would have never came back.

Yes "core buyers" have the best price, but you will have to start with a few dozen to get their attention. Most guys on here come by them one or two at a time.

10 different buyers, 10 different grades, 10 different prices.... -- how to find, there not hard to find, just learn ur converters before u decide to buy 20-100 of them
cuz its very easy to loose money very quickly , there typically fairly easy to identify if u start out with a basic grade

ohh and if u dont know what something is, bid low -- sell it, then take money back to that person if its worth more, long run business ethics help out alot in this business

i first started working a 10$ a hr job in a warehouse, a mechanic buddy of mine got a sheet of paper that said buying scrap catalytic converters, and so i went n sold 2 off my 84 bronco , then went to this guys house lol, he started out of his garage lol, started working out of a nissan 240sx then a month or two later got a van then started buying from friends in street racing community , then came summer- drove around found some demo derby guys lol, still have guys that sell to me and only me, and buy like 40 from them once a year lol among other things alt,starters,rims,rads,batteries, etc... , now i get emails of different parts that companies are looking for lol -- beware of buying from rolling gypsys also, tricky bastards, also when u first start, try to stick to shops, or if someone wants to meet up, do it at a friends shop or a busy gas station

Originally Posted by chrisc

not just money a ton of knowledge on cats you can loose ton of money real quick.Cats all over the board in prices 30- 300 ish "these are rough estimates" but you got be able to to the difference from a big ford to big gm we use this as example big ford around 100 bucks in scrap ,a big gm 200-300 in scrap "again there rough estimates", or even bmw there cats are expensive but aftermarket are like 30 bucks . im just trying to explain what i know there so much difference in prices and you have to know every cat for every car or truck ,i have a buyer he told me in 20 years he been doing scrap he lost thousands till he learned to tell difference in between them..if you do just read till you comfortable buying them or you can break the bank fast...

Your pricing is way off.... show me a buyer that is paying $200 for large GM or $30 for aftermarkets and I will ship out a trailer load tomorrow....

To the original poster, I hate to say it, but everyone here is right, you are not going to make money buying cats without a large bankroll. I myself am a core buyer, I buy from garages, dealerships and scrapyards. Im all for anyone going out to earn a living, trust me there is enough to go around for everyone, but the simple fact is garages are not going to sell you their cats for a few bucks. Right now I am paying $128 for GM's to my garage customers, I make $5 a cat, the only way to make money is volume, and it takes a bankroll. The core market is highly competetive, for everything I buy (batteries, starters, alternators, keyless remotes, engines, etc) I pay more than the scrapyard would if the business brought it in themselves. So, in all honesty, for you to buy it and bring it to a scrapyard is a tough sell, for example, I'm paying $12-13 each for auto batteries from garages, thats about .36 cents a lb, 90% of scrapyards don't even pay that at their door, while I am picking it up. If you want to try and get in this business, establish a bankroll first, learn your material... specifically the foreign catergories, domestics are easy, but first and foremost learn how to spot an aftermarket, eliminate your chances of getting burned. Always educate your customers, do not tell them a cat is an aftermarket to try and make a quick buck, set your profit margin and pay accordingly, repeat business is the name of the game, and loyalty means absoultely nothing in this game when you come to the door with cash.

I cant sell cats here! Format Document

Originally Posted by hobo finds

I cant sell cats here! Format Document

Ship them off to a Cat Buyer out of State
You will likely make more money that way
Everyone seems to specialize now days

You will need to know wich ones are worth what , and where to sell for more Money , You can get ones paying $4 to $1200 each Depending on the Cat.

Follow this link for Converters Lookup it may help you Judge What to buy and look for :

PGM Recyclers | Online Converter Guide


I sell at a Place in Hamilton Called JJ Cores when i have lots. Large GM about $125 each depends on Size and make and The day !