About Us

My name is Ethan Dunchack - I’m a 19 year old student, and car guy at heart. I created downpipedaddy.com and @downpipedaddy after hearing how many of my friends were ripped off for their catalytic converters or downpipes. Even worse, these sales were often illicit and places both parties under risk of legal acton.

 I wanted to create a solution that is both legal and elegant for car guys like myself. As I explored the industry, I discovered that many transactions involved sketchy meetups with strangers who had little regard for whether the converters were stolen and no passion for cars beyond their monetary value.

 

While we no longer buy downpipes, downpipedaddy lives on as a high-performance exhaust solution for enthusiasts. 

 

 Converter Valuation

 This is something thats pretty mysterious to most people, and I don’t blame them. However, converter values change. I’ve heard it all. Many times i’ve priced a customer for say $400, and they’ll tell me that their buddy “Sold the same one for $1200”, often saying that my price is ridiculous. I’ll tell them to shop around.. and a week later I end up sending them $400 for the cat.

The values of the metals inside a converter change every single day, and the metals are no different from gold. When a new converter is recycled, an XRF gun is used to “Scan” the cat for its values, and match it to its reference number. They then get a set of results for how many parts per million of a given metal is in the converter. They then multiply the quantity of the metals by the price of the metals, and you’re left with the value of the cat.

This also means that the values are constantly changing, so what something sold for a year ago isn’t always relevant.

Additionally, the reference number is really important. While many cats look identical, some contain far more PGM than others. One example is n54’s in the e60 vs the e90. Because the e60 is heavier, they emit more getting up to the same speed as an e90. This means the cat ends up being far more expensive.