soft tops being slashed in london/other urban areas?

[nish81]

The initial message was deleted from this topic on 18 October 2017 at 22:11

[trickywoo]

Not much of a problem.

Penalties for carrying an offensive weapon are pretty steep so you don't really get people randomly slashing soft tops.

[Sycamore]

I live in Dudley, near Wolverhampton, and my post code is horrific.
I live in an end terrace house, opposite some council housing flats.
I park my MR2 on the street and even leave my dash-cam in overnight and I have no issues.

Obviously it can/does still happen, but I don't think it's as bad as it used to be.

I'll admit I did think about it when buying my car (and my Smart Roadster before), however I'd not let it put you off buying a soft top.

[SuperchargedVR6]

That was a paranoia my soft top owning friends had 25 years ago, but not one of them suffered a slashing. And no one nicked their VW badges after Beastie Boy concerts either.

[larrylamb11]

It still happens:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMqlkIGSk3s

I guess it depends if you are unlucky and some scrote decides to just 'have a look'....

[Siy]

happened to mine once, near the Oval, SW9
Bloody annoying!!!

[mgv8]

Had a soft top in London for about 6 years and never had a problem.

[bobtail4x4]

dont lock the doors,

[Moonpie21]

I have had a few soft tops and can honestly say the fear of it happening is truly annoying, but in reality it didn't really happen to me.

I mean once someone stuck a screw driver through the plastic back windscreen on my first MX-5 back in 98 I just stuck a puncture repair clear circle of plastic over it. But that was the only instance in 5 years of various convertible cars in and around Hounslow/Hanworth area.

[R11ysf]

OP i think your dad is still living in the 70s.

I've had 6 or 7 soft tops and never had a problem. One of them I even used to leave unlocked to stop them doing that but again never had a problem.

[V8RX7]

I've owned soft tops for 25 years - never had a problem.

From various clubs I know of around 200 other owners and perhaps 10 have been slashed in that time - usually to steal something.

I never leave anything in the car and used to use a Disclok to alert potential thieves that it wouldn't be an easy option.

[PositronicRay]

If anyone wants to break into your car they'll do it, usually by breaking a window. Soft-tops are pretty tough things.

More realistic worries are mildew.

[OvalOwl]

Siy said:

happened to mine once, near the Oval, SW9
Bloody annoying!!!

Erk!

I've had foot prints on my boot lids and scuffs on the bumper due to interference parking, but no slashed top yet.
Poverty Pork Boxster parked outside for the past two and a half years.

[sim16v]

Ditto what everyone else has said.

My sis had convertables 10+ years ago and i've had them for the last 4 or 5 years and never had an issue with the hoods.

More likely to get randomly keyed or have a mirror smashed off by passing cars/vandals.

[AlexRS2782]

Back when I owned my 306 cabriolet years ago I never suffered with any slashed tops, however I must have had at least 7 or 8 instances of people during the summer pouring things on the roof instead, in the area of the south east I was living in at the time.

It was mainly things like McDonalds / KFC sauce packets, etc - which resulted in me having to scrub the soft top roof clean every now & again Before the autumn that year I got fed up and decided to fit the optional hard top in advance of the winter and I never had anything poured on the roof again.

[swisstoni]

Happened to me once, over many years of TVR ownership, in a East London suburb over 20 years ago.

[Mandalore]

It's a throwback..

To when car alarms were only connected to door switches and people would breaking in via the cloth roof.

Vandalism happens to any car, but you are still more likely to get your paint scratched,

[motco]

SuperchargedVR6 said:

That was a paranoia my soft top owning friends had 25 years ago, but not one of them suffered a slashing. And no one nicked their VW badges after Beastie Boy concerts either.

When I had my Midget bacl in the mid-seventies I was concerned about this but it never happened. A chum of mine reckoned Slash the Hood was in jail...

[jmsgld]

My Chimaera had the window slashed and a broken ipod stolen, kind of my fault for leaving the ipod somewhere obvious though, that was about 5 years ago. I lived on Kings Rd at the time and you get a lot of idiots around for the Chelsea football, one of my friends partners had their new TT run over by half a dozen drunken idiots.