For those citizens who plan to acquire a car of foreign origin, they must be very attentive, and it is that remove the catalytic converter to the chocolate cars before they cross the border to resell it and thus are acquired by Mexican buyers.
The catalytic converter or catalytic converter is a component that serves to control and reduce the harmful gases expelled by the vehicle engine, hence its great importance.
Chocolate cars: they remove the catalytic converter before bringing them to the country
Catalysts are components. highly prized among auto parts dealers due to the metals found inside, including palladium and rhodium. Although the most valued is undoubtedly the platinum.
Catalyst theft is not a strange practice, actually, It is common in mechanical workshopssince customers do not know if this component is removed from their units, since it is located in the lower part of the vehicle.
According to Guillermo Rosales Zarate, director of the Mexican Association of Automotive Dealers (AMDA), when they remove the converters from the so-called ‘chocolate cars‘these become very pollutingsince these devices help reduce gas emissions.
With regard to the useful life of a catalyst, this consists of a period of between 10 and 15 years, but due to the recoverable metals, usually before crossing the border, they take them off. Therefore, the cars arrive and circulate in Mexico without catalyst or with one clogged, saturated or in poor condition.
catalytic converter can be resold at a price above other auto parts on the black market, since it is made up of precious metals, either for reuse or to extract the metals from its components.
It is worth mentioning that the purchase of Chocolate cars are more accessible to the population that you cannot obtain credits to acquire national cars.
Because of this, the Mexican government imposed a chocolate car nationalization decreewhich seeks to regulate the circulation of this type of vehicle in the country.
Toxic emissions released by the lack of a catalyst
If a imported car does not have a catalytic converter, these emit carbon monoxide particles, hydrocarbons and nitrogen dioxide. As is known, these are precursors of pollutants that harm and damage the ozone layer, so check that the car has a catalyst is very important.
Emissions from a chocolate car don’t have a catalytic converter they can be up to 300 times more harmful than emissions from a conventional car.
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