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In countries such as south africa and jamaica where people have bars on windows and valuables in a safe, they just get hacked with a machete when they arrive home. More shopping is no cure, there is no consumerist solution, it's not the victims at fault it is the criminals who are allowed to carry on unchecked. People are the problem, not inanimate objects.
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I agree with the post above - changing the transponder code is all that really needs doing if you accept thet the vehicle interior may not be secure.
As far as having the Audi stolen in the first place - easy. Buy a Skoda. Same chassis, burglars will ignore.
659.
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My colleague was attacked this week as he left a takeaway - people around, just some young hoodie caught him off guard, knocked him to the floor and snatched his keys before he could get up.
All for a Mondeo - all be it a new Ghia Estate.
So Skoda's certainly aren't safe !
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For hijackings you could try :
www.sillyhumor.com/trunkmonkey/
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you need to narrow things down........so that the thief goes on to easier pickings.
car jackings and violence in the home from a burglar are still extremely rare and most thieves do not want any kind of confrontation
keys in safe place... NOT anywhere near the front door (where things like fishing rods and bamboo cane have been used, through the letter box).
Alarm on house, security lights on entry/exit points, timer switch for lights when you are away, put the car in the garage instead of filling it full of rubbish (so the thieves don't see the car when they do their recce)...if you're lazy get an electric opener.
most of all.....have a think to yourself...if i locked myself out, what's the easiest way to get in, because that's inevitably what the thief will go for....oh and don't leave a spare key under the plant pot, mat, above the door etc, cos they'll look there.
it is amazing how many houses have an impressive front door with 5 lever mortice etc and when you go around the back, there's a thin softwood door with a large pain of non armoured glass, that your granny could lean on and she's in...or a flat roof, with easy access to an upstairs window.
generally burglars don't like hassle.... alarms, dogs, bright lights etc are hassle
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Dogs every time, they provide an audible deterant and a physical one if all else fails. Get something with some bite but with the brains not to when it isn't required. I'd have a laugh if someone came here to nick my car keys I'd probably reward them for being able to find them ! I can confirm that BMW keys are stunnable by the dealer.
and laws were most numerous when the commonwealth was most corrupt. Tacitus, Annals
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I went for a walk to get my morning newspaper yesterday. Walking along the lane I came across a bag of 'rubbish' which I assumed was the result of fly tipping. On my way back I decided to do my bit for the environment and pick the bag up so that i could bin it when I got home.
At the last moment I decided to rip the bag open just to make sure that it was useless stuff only to find visa slips, credit cards, bank slips, travel documents, current business notes, an empty wallet etc etc. Obviously thought that it was rather careless to fly tip such sensitive stuff so I searched through it until I found a contact name. I couldn't get the telephone number from BT so I decided to ring my local police. The lack of interest from the police didn't leave me particularly enamoured to be honest so I decided to drive to the chap's house and give him the stuff back.
Boy was he grateful. A really nice guy. It had been nicked out of his expensive car in his drive overnight. They had tried to use his bank cards which they had knicked along with other useful stuff such as his birth certificate. Chap was obviously an inteligent senior director sort of person but why oh why do we continue to make things so easy for the scum who perpetrate this kind of crime?
Have a think please!
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OK- I do buy the idea of just changing the transponder code and leaving the locks - but here is the rub: insurance will pay out for locks all round & new keys, but not the transponder / ECU change. If you think that this could never happen to you then double check the small print on your car insurance & think about where you leave your keys. Interestingly there are several cars in the street of considerably higher value -police have told us that the car was stolen to carry out "another crime" & mini was recovered with false plates. I know how this happens because one time I was visiting a hospital in Yorkshire, I came out to find my plates had been pinched - W Yorks police were "interested" in forensics / prints but not interested enough to come over the other side of the Pennines! I assume my plates had been used to rob a bank (or perhaps just drive away with petrol!).
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Nothing new in this either - found two policemen on the drive examining our car about 16 years ago. Turns out a car with the same number had been used as a getaway car somewhere in London. They had not nicked our plates though.
Also when a colleague had a break in to steal his car (a Passat!) he asked the police if it was better taking the keys upstairs - their response was "No sir, you wouldn't want them to come up and ask for them would you!"
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> Also when a colleague had a break in to steal his car (a Passat!) he asked the police if it was better taking the keys upstairs - their response was "No sir, you wouldn't want them to come up and ask for them would you!"
a fair point....but....going along with that principle, why not leave the keys in the ignition....so that they don't come into the house in the first place...
most thieves do not want any kind of confrontation, so the more you do to safeguard your property, the more likely you'll keep hold of it.
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Unfortunately you don't get to choose which kind of thief is visiting you...
Personally, I'd love to inflict a little justice of my own on any intruders intent on taking my car keys, but when it comes to the safety of my family they can take my keys without even having to say please.
If it wasn't for the insurance company insisting on some basic precautions, then yes, I'd rather leave the keys in the ignition than be faced with a couple of grunts wielding baseball bats at 2am in my own home...
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fair enough choice........but think of it from the thief's perspective
he might be ok and be burgling Horace Wimp and his missus, but on the other hand the Mad Axeman has to live somewhere doesn't he...
the vast majority, by far, of break -ins are the non confrontational type.......the odd one or two that aren't obviously make headlines, which makes it seem worse
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Yeah, but by definition, the burglar is more likely to come from the "bad side of town" and you are in the nice middle class suburb? Otherwise, he would be working for a living like you or I and you would have little worth nicking that would warrant going in there with force...
A slight generalisation, but you get my drift. The burglar is more likely to *be* The Mad Axeman than the middle age owner of a nice new prestige rep-mobile..
I suspect then, that some (not all) would be quite happy to take their chances with the occupants - especially if there is more than one of them and they're armed...
Like I say, you don't know whether you going to get a cautious, try not to be seen burglar, or Mr "I've served time since the age of 12, do I care" burglar.
In that case, make it easy for them, beyond basic precautions. Is it worth putting yourself or family at risk for a trivial possession?
The concept of car jacking and house break-ins for cars was practically unheard before immobilisers. Why up the ante any more by making those all too precious keys hard to get hold of?
I worry about the development of using fingerprint technology to start cars, you can easily imagine what that will cause in terms of escalation of violence to steal cars.
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I once had a Golf GTi 1.8T stolen. Keys were in the kitchen and taken through a Window. They obviously wanted the car and so with hindsight I'd prefer they took the keys this way than when I was coming out of the house. A few years back there were a few cars taken nearby by someone pointing a gun at the driver.
Earlier this year a neighbour had their front door smashed in by thieves using a sledgehammer and they had machetes. They took two older cars. They were in because it was early morning and they have very young children. Frightening. A bit less subtle than a fishing rod.
A neighbour of my parents in law a few years back had a number of thieves break in the back door to get keys (he had some sort of performance car). He came down and they were armed but with children in the house he had a go (and they beat him with a stick with a nail in it) and he chased them down the streer in his underwear. He got rid of the car the next day at some loss - his wife insisted.
Sad that my next car will be another boring one probably. Currently drive a Mondeo diesel. But less likely for someone to want to steal it.
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There's no easy answer to this problem. Raise the stakes and the criminals raise their game. If you have an attractive car then the only solution is to garage it securely it when not in use. Out of sight, out of the criminals' mind. Clearly if they watch you parking it in there you've lost the upper hand, but if they are cruising the streets and see an empty drive, they'll move on.
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The night before my Golf was taken, I had the feeling I was being followed for most of a journey but cannot be sure.
Unless my Golf was taken out of the country or broken for spares it would be very hard to put the plates from a write-off on it because it was non standard for a Golf GTI in black:
- Blue check seats instead of red
- Sunroof and air-con
- Cruise control
- CD autochanger (I don't think it was standard but it might have been)
I bet mine was one of very few like that in the UK.
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Westpig is right, even with toerags regarded as dangerous...
Some idiot left the front door open late on Carnival evening some years ago. The hard core of those left in the house were socializing boozily on the first floor. My wife went out of the room for some reason to go downstairs, and a moment later there were a couple of shouts and the thundering of heavy footsteps on the stairs and in the hall.
Four or five young hooligans were exploring the ground floor and she had met one of them on the stairs. They had fled instantly without laying a finger on her, taking my SiL's purse from beside her bed downstairs and nothing else as far as we could tell (this was before laptop computers were everywhere, and pickpocket/steamer types don't recognize valuable old china and the like).
I was very relieved that they didn't hurt her as, at another Carnival 18 years ago, in a friend's house down the road, some of these types had stashed part of a video recorder in the laundry basket before being noticed and asked to leave. Outside, they beat up a very drunk African who had been more or less accepted in the house (he had been brought against instructions by an invitee) and brought him back covered in blood as a scam for getting back into the house (it failed). But the African was nastily injured. There are some horrible people around.
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As far as having the Audi stolen in the first place - easy. Buy a Skoda. Same chassis, burglars will ignore.>>
Sadly not true
A friend's father had a paving slab thrown through the lounge window to get the keys for his Octavia VRS.
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A friend's father had a paving slab thrown through the lounge window to get the keys for his Octavia VRS.
Heavens, the superhuman skill displayed by professional criminals... no wonder so few of them get caught.
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I understand Tony Martin offers advice on these matters , just remember criminals have rights and like Father Christmas leave mince pies and a bottle of Sherry out.
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Here's my cunning plan - only suitable for those with a big enough driveway:
Buy a shed on wheels - say an old Sierra. Runs, but no MoT. Use it to block in the nice car(s), but leave it unlocked, and with keys in, always, when it's blocking your car in. Put keys away when it's on its own, of course.
Crims will take the Sierra every time, and won't even bother to look for keys to anything else.
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Pretty easy solution.
Have a Clifford Blackjax unit fitted, Car gets stolen with the keys, thief gets several hundred yards / about 40 seconds down the road & is then stuck unless he knows the pin code because the unit will shut the engine down.
Without the pin code the car aint going anywhere even with the keys!
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LeePower:Have a Clifford Blackjax unit fitted, Car gets stolen with the keys, thief gets several hundred yards / about 40 seconds down the road & is then stuck unless he knows the pin code because the unit will shut the engine down. Without the pin code the car aint going anywhere even with the keys!
As seen in the "Transporter 2" film!
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Not seen Transporter 2 yet.
Had a Clifford Concept 600 alarm / immobiliser on my old car that came with standard Blackjax, Never used it though because it already had a thatcham cat 2 PSA keypad immobiliser on.
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>>Unless my Golf was taken out of the country or broken for spares it would be very hard to put the plates from a >>write-off on it because it was non standard for a Golf GTI in black:
A lot of fast cars are stolen to use in other crimes. They serve purposes such as getaway vehicles for other burglaries/robberies. Around the Derby area at the moment there seems to be a surge in the number of armed robberies on cash vans. Its not unusual for the thieves to have two or three fast getaway vehicles to transfer from one to the other to conceal their tracks. These vehicles are normally always stolen cars of reasonably high performance, and by that I'm not talking about Subaru's and Mitsubishi Evo's, I'm talking about less conspicuous motors such as your Golf GTi and V6 Vectra's, to name just two examples. These cars have to come from somewhere to commit these crimes and unfortunately with the manufacturers raising their game and making cars a lot more secure, they are often now stolen with the keys by the various methods already discussed in this thread of stealing the keys from the owner first.
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Aren't top spec SAAB's the weapon of choice in Manchester ?
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With the latest Redeye Evo heat-seekers nestling in pods under either wing? :o)
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Crims will take the Sierra every time, and won't even bother to look for keys to anything else.
Not necessarily. When I worked at the Ford dealership, we had an Escort Cosworth stolen off the forecourt which had been blocked in by three other cars (and the wall of the building behind). Came in the next morning to find the three cars abandoned at random in the middle of the forecourt, all with busted doorlocks and released handrakes, and the Cossie had gone. The cars the perps could have driven away were all less than a year old and worth about £40k as a set, but they were only focusing on their target. These cars were broken into, the handbrakes released, and pushed out the way. After that, they were completely ignored.
The Cossie was spotted speeding away from the scene of an armed robbery in the next town a week later, and then found burnt out in a nature reserve car park a few days after that. If they want the car, they'll ignore whatever else you put in their way.
Cheers
DP
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Ok - my initial impression was that a sensible increase in security measures a nobrainer e.g. alarm, movement activated lights, window locks etc. But, once the "determined" are in if they are after car keys leave them easily found - kitchen table etc. - loosing a car is one thing but ...........
What about trackers - has anyone had a car nicked and not got it back with a tracker fitted - how much to spend etc?
If anyone followed the initial post, the mini cooperS was found with false plates & involved in what the police describe as "another crime". Returned unharmed but no keys therefore new locks, new fobs and re-program needed.
Also point of interest courtesy car is BMW318si - quite refined but utterly gutless engine - is the 2.0 diesel any better?
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Headline in the local rag this week - In Central Region Police Area 40 cars taken off the driveway by fishing the keys off the table or breaking into the house - only 5 recovered so far. All the cars were new(ish) Mercs, BMW, Audis....nothing cheap and nasty
If you have a gaarge use it and lock the car in there - in most homes opening the garage door would waken even the deepest sleeper - not 100% but a step in the right direction.
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Or do as i do and buy older cars and when you feel dubious about where you leave them pocket the rotor arm, easy peesy and totally immobalised, how many pond scum carry a rotor arm in their pockets let alone the correct one ?.
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>>What about trackers - has anyone had a car nicked and not got it back with a tracker fitted
Not me personally but there are certainly plenty of owners out there who have never seen their vehicles again that had trackers fitted. I've got a feeling that the success rate is around 95%. As with all technology it isn't foolproof by any means.
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a rotor arm
A rotor arm? Didn't they go out about the same time as solid tyres? ;-)
--
L\'escargot.
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Rotor arms are still around on some cars, but the top of the distributor is now usually screwed down, not retained by clips, so removing the arm is not a 2 minute job any more.
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