Steel shields measured and cut for your specific vehicle, then bolted or welded over the converter so a thief moves to the next car on the street.
4.9 50 reviews from Cleveland customers
Rated with the BBBArc Wheels Welding LLC, since 2023
Black ownedIndependent shop on Cleveland's southeast side
This page is about stopping it happening. If yours has already been taken, converter welding is the page you want and the two jobs are usually done together.
Converter theft is a volume crime and volume crimes respond to friction. Nobody working under a car at three in the morning is trying to defeat a specific vehicle, they are looking for the fastest one on the street. A shield does not make a converter impossible to take. It makes it slow, awkward and loud, and that is enough to move somebody along.
Anything with ground clearance. Trucks, vans and SUVs can be got under in seconds without a jack, which is most of the equation.
Work vans parked overnight on the street, which are the single most targeted category in Cleveland because they are high, predictable and unattended for eight hours.
Certain hybrids, where the converter carries more of the metals that make it worth stealing.
Vehicles that have already been hit once. A converter that was easy to take the first time is easy to take again three months later, which is the pattern that brings most people here.
Every shield is measured to the vehicle. There is no standard size because the space around a converter, the exhaust routing and the available mounting points differ between models and often between trim levels of the same model.
Material gets chosen for the job rather than for thickness bragging rights. What matters is that it cannot be cut quickly with a battery saw and cannot be levered off, which is as much about how it is fixed as what it is made from.
Mounting is the part that decides whether it works. Bolted to the frame or welded to the underbody, into sound structure, with fasteners that are not simply undone. Shields fixed to the exhaust itself come off with the exhaust.
Heat and access get accounted for. A converter runs hot and a shield that traps that heat against wiring or a fuel line is a different problem, and anything that needs to be reached for service still gets reached.
We will not fit a shield that traps heat against a fuel line or wiring loom, and we will not fix one to the exhaust because it is quicker. Both defeat the point in different ways.
As a deterrent, yes. Converter theft is a volume crime, so the thing that protects you is being slower and louder than the vehicle parked behind you. A shield does not make theft impossible and anyone claiming otherwise is overselling.
A shield is a fraction of what a replacement converter and the associated exhaust work costs, particularly on vehicles where the converter is part of a larger assembly. Send your vehicle details to 216.309.1567 for a real number.
Yes, and it works out better per vehicle than doing them one at a time. Work vans parked on the street overnight are the most targeted category in the city, so fleet shielding is worth doing before the first one goes rather than after.
Not if it is designed properly. Access for anything that needs reaching is planned in. A shield that has to be cut off for an oil change is a badly made shield.
That is a repair rather than a prevention job, and it usually makes sense to do both at once. The replacement gets welded in and the shield goes on while the vehicle is already up.
Most quotes come back the same day the shop is open. Free, no obligation, and if it cannot be repaired you will hear that straight.
