(Not the meowing kind, even worse!)
Came outside this morning to find my mx sounds like a drag racer, looked underneath and someone has cut the exhaust and removed the cat. Absolutely gutted. I am also worried about what kind of damaged may have been done by these scallys ?
Is it just a case of getting a new cat and fitting it?
Thanks
This has been a big issue recently - see this BBC news article.
The biggest issues are (1) what other damage may have been done while it was being removed and (2) whether Mazda UK have any cats in stock. (It happened to a - disabled - driver on another forum, and Lexus quoted him a number of months before they were likely to have a replacement cat available…)
Its so frustrating, they can’t be worth more than about a tenner scrap and mine would have been guaranteed to have been heavily rusted!
I found this on eBay - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/254499184955
If it ever stops raining I will take a look underneath, I had a quick look and it looks like they just chopped a section out and left in the gasket.
As you say I just hope they didn’t cause any damage in the process with the powertools or jacking it up improperly.
Unfortunately these MK2 and MK2.5 cats are selling for a fortune, the original Mazda fit ones that is.
There must be a lot of precious metals that can be reclaimed from the core.
You need to get under the car to check what has gone - hopefully they just cut the box off, so a simple aftermarket cat(assuming MK2) will replace it. The original part would have been cat and middle box combined. That replacement involves cutting the pipe and sleeving on to the middle box pipe.
Bad luck. I knew this was a problem but I thought it usually only happened to cars the thieves can squeeze underneath without jacking them up; 4x4s and “soft roaders”.
Cheers fellas. If you have any recommendations on car security let me know. Might make a thread on it
Hopefully a cheap aftermarket cat will be all that is needed and to avoid a future problem just put a sticker somewhere on the car stating ’ non type-approved aftermarket cat fitted - no scrap value’. No self respecting low-life will touch it 
Theft deterrence is anything that makes you a less tempting target, or at least less tempting than some other poor soul: park in a busier area where nobody will have privacy to to jack up your car to nick parts, and if you can’t do that then park next to posher cars, especially ones with high ground clearance.
I can’t remember where it was posted, but there was a link to a news item where some thieving scrote had jacked up an SUV only to have the car roll and crush him.
Can’t ask for more than that really, so leave the car in neutral !