Cali-Raised might have saved me!

Wifey and I were coming out of a CineMark movie theater in Cedar Park, TX a couple weeks ago, on a Friday night, after seeing Mission Impossible, The Final Reckoning.

We had my 2022 T4R SR5 Premium 4WD out with us. We were just climbing up in to our T4R when a vehicle a few spots away from us fired up, quite annoyingly loudly. Wifey actually commented, and I quote- “Oh we have a Mr. big man on campus over there.”

I told her no, that doesn’t sound right. Well, curiosity killed the cat, so I got back out of my truck to go investigate. Here it was a lady with a couple of kids in a Tundra. (A good Tundra- the big V-8.) We greeted each other, but she was really perplexed. I guessed right away what was wrong- that she had gotten her cats stolen.

I instructed her to shut her engine back off, and I got my old bod down on the ground and crawled under her truck, with the torchlight on my cell phone. Sure enough, she had been victimized. Sons a bitches. I told her what I saw. She started crying. I tried to calm her down. So now wifey comes over to see what’s going on, and after finding out, she calls the poh-leece. I told her don’t waste your time, they’re not going to show up for this. But surprisingly, and pleasantly, they told her they had a car nearby, and told her they’d be right there. Cool.

Well, they showed up quick, but long story short they made record of the incident, took the lady’s contact info, and recommended she contact her insurance company. Then, they got an emergency call, and had to split. So there we all sat. The lady said what now do I have to call a tow truck? I told her I didn’t think so. I asked her if I could get in her truck to start the engine. I fired it back up. Well it ran of course, but the yellow Check Engine Light was on. I asked her if that light was already on before the theft. She said no.

I asked her where the lived. Turns out she was along the route home for us. I told her she could drive the truck home. Well she was afraid to. Ugh. I offered for her and her kids to ride with my wife in our T4R and to lead the way to her house, and I would drive the Tundra home for her. Well she took me up on that. Got her home in less than 10 minutes. We put the Tundra in her garage. Oi. She was very thankful for our help. She said she’d call the dealer. Her husband was out of town on business. She was worried that he was going to be pissed. I left her my mobile number and told her to have him call me if he wanted, while telling her she did nothing wrong.

Dang! What a crock!

So how much ya wanna bet that those cock suckers crawled under my T4R as well??!! figuring they were going to steal my cats as well while they were there? We were parked only 4 spots down from that Tundra. But- I had bought and installed a set of Cali-Raised Cat Shields on my ride last year! And here Wifey didn’t want me to spend the money at the time. She said, well you were right.

Crazy man, crazy. Dam thieves. Poor woman.

Thanks Cali-Raised!

 

Cool story and you did good helping the lady .

 

Good for you and your family for helping her!

 

Agreed - I bet the lowlife scoundrels looked at your Runner’s cats too. Just about everything I’ve seen from Cali-Raised is great stuff. Congrats for being willing to be there when someone else is in a mess. Good stuff and great account of the whole thing. Thanks for sharing.

 

Good job!!

 

1. You were a great Toyota owner.

2. Omg if you weren't a great person this woman and her kids would have been abducted because of some cats.....

 

Abducted?

 

I read this thinking you had been looking for lost kittys at first

 

You are the shining example of what it means to have empathy towards others, to go above and beyond what other passerby’s whom would just look and move along. My hat’s off to you!

 

Aw shucks, it was nothing, lol, but thanks for the kind replies. …..just trying to do like a sorta public service announcement here- But I’m here to tell you- that was a close call for me, I think. Get yourselves some Cat. Converter protection shields. I do believe mine have now probably paid off. These worthless scum bags are out there. You always think something like this won’t happen to you.

 

Here’s a couple piccys of one, and both of mine after being freshly installed. I drove up on a solid pair of ramps to install them at home, on May 2, 2024.

 

Several years ago, I had protection installed on my T4R and Tacoma. No telling how many times someone has crawled under my trucks with nefarious intentions and went somewhere else.

@Rick G. good on you for being a gentleman and helping that family figure out what happened and getting them home safely.

 

I have these on our 2024 and they do give me some peace of mind. Thanks for sharing and glad you helped.

 

Here, I’ll throw in a before pic of mine to help show those of you who may not crawl under your T4R just how vulnerable we are. My vehicle is the SR5 4WD.

Please be advised- at the time I ordered my cat shields in May of ‘24 Cali-Raised stated that these shields would not fit 2WD T4Rs. Why, I don’t know. Perhaps they by now have a 2WD kit? If interested, be sure to call them first before ordering to clarify or confirm.

 

That photo says "Steal me!!"

Same cat shields here. Thanks for confirming they most likely do what's intended. I wonder if Cali Raised has cat shields for Tundras?

 

OP, you are clearly a nice guy. Well done, kudos, I'd buy you a beer if I was closer etc...

I'm going to go the opposite way of most people here though and say that I wouldn't have done all that - not because I don't want to help people, but because people that are that helpless really need a sink-or-swim lesson. She could have and should have figured it out, and coddling her did her no favors. I mean, how much of a rube do you have to be to be afraid to drive your truck after an explanation of the situation is given to you? This person was more at ease loading her family into a car with strangers and turning her truck over to another stranger to drive to her home, than she was just driving a loud truck home? This is nonsensical behavior. People like that need to be left to their own devices.

Further, at the onset, how did you know the whole thing wasn't a setup to victimize you? You set a stranger in a car with your wife. The Tundra could have been stolen; she could have been in the process of stealing it; or numerous other issues which could have flared up and swallowed up you and / or your wife.

My course of action might have been: "hey sounds like your catalytic convertor isn't attached anymore, those get stolen frequently. Bummer. Well, goodnight and godspeed!" (clicking of gear shift going into 'drive' followed by engine noises fading into the distance).

Also absent any clear proof that the thieves tried to steal your cats I think you are assigning too much credit to your anti theft devices. I pluck one pube every time I park and put it on my windshield and no one has stolen my cats yet so clearly windshield pubes are a theft deterrent. See?

 

Law enforcement always see everyone else as a perp. @MeefZah, I can see your point of view because you see the worst people every day. But a lot of us don't, and we see the value in helping others in a different way than you do.

Thank you for your service.

 

I see potential for bad things, sure; but as my second paragraph spells out it's more about leaving her to her own devices to figure it out. It's not like she was stranded in the desert. I highly doubt that if OP left and came back 3 hours later she would have still been sitting there weeping.

 

Well, all I can say is, you had to be there. Yes, I could have ignored the noise and just drove away. But for what ever reason I chose to investigate, and it all worked out well- the lady was very thankful for our help. It’s good that my wife was there and came over from our truck to also investigate.

If I had been alone or with a buddy of mine instead of my wife, the other woman may have indeed felt uneasy about me approaching her.

As for me surmising that these scums also crawled under my truck to steal my cats, true- there’s no way of knowing if that really happened. But I bet my bottom sawbuck they noticed my T4R parked a few spots down and were quite possibly licking their chops at the prospect of scoring two big hits for the price of one so to speak. We were indeed parked further out in this particular parking lot, and little traffic would have been passing through that lot between shows at the theater. I now wonder, in retrospect, if there were security cameras surveying that parking lot. The police should have known if there were, but, they didn’t mention it. And, as I mentioned, they took off on another call in a hurry.

 

@Rick G. opted to “give them a fish and feed them for a day” while it seems @MeefZah is a proponent of “teach them to fish and feed them for a lifetime.”

 

Make sure you write the date and time down and keep it somewhere safe.

Those words are seldom spoken...

 

I wonder about people who would walk away from a distraught person with children who is obviously struggling and in need of assistance.

I don't live my life in fear of others. I help when I can. It was the way I was raised. A man doesn't walk away when he could easily help, or he's not much of a man.

Stop being afraid of your own shadow...

 

You don't have to save everyone to call yourself a man. If someone is in distress, step up. If they can sort out their own shit if left to their own devices, go your own way.

She was in a parking lot at the movies; which are usually near a metric shit-ton of other businesses and thus, other people. The cops were clearly nearby. The truck ran, just loudly. She was fine if she stayed there; she was fine if she drove away.

Her being so distraught over a 'meh' thing would lead me to question her mental health. Her being so worried about what her husband would do to her when he found out would lead me to question the nature of that relationship. No way am I inserting myself into crazy lady with spousal abuser bullshit. That's a 'her' problem.

My bottom line is, if someone is going to get hurt then I'll help out. If they might just be uncomfortable for a minute then they don't need my help.

I get this is the minority opinion but I wanted to give voice to the maybe three other people on here who feel like I do, plus it is an interesting discussion.

 

The woman had children with her.

A man never stands taller than when he stoops to help a child.

But you do you... man...

 

And she could have driven home with them.

I'm not saying no one should ever be helped; I'm saying she didn't need it.

Having kids honestly should have been more reason for her to keep her composure. Can you imagine being an 8 year old and your mom losing her mind in front of you so badly over something so insignificant that a stranger had to drive you home?

 

Sorry to burst your bubble. The thief likely targeted the Tundra regardless if you had cat shields. The 4R has only the rear cats exposed. The rear cats are unmonitored in OBD2 and aren't that valuable on the gray market. The Tundra with its bigger V8 displaced the more valuable front cats to the underside of the truck, ripe for the taking:



But whatever it takes for you to justify spending mod money to your wife

 

Interesting info on the 5.7 V-8 Tundras 3JOH22A. I’ve never seen underneath one with the cats still in place, and until crawling underneath that vandalized one recently. Thanks.

 

Why live somewhere that you have to worry about having your cats stolen