Near Theft of my S3

[Digga]

PixelpeepS3 said:

i am in romford, essex which isn't a great area but i don't think we're in Birmingham type car crime league yet.

SAdly, this is the issue; if you're unfortunate enough to live within a comfortable 'criminal's commute' from any of the third world bits of the UK that have been allowed to fester and develop, beneath the PC policing radar, all bets are off.

[jhonn]

hkz286 said:

Also I don't really buy the whole "if they want it, they will take it". .. but in a practical sense I don't believe.

So... what bit are you having difficulty with?

Imagine you're a thief - why take the high-risk of trying to rob a bank/Post Office when for a much lower risk you can turnover a house, that has minimal security and non-prepared inhabitants for a return of £40k+; not bad for a nights work with very little chance of comeback or getting caught - minimal grief, maximum return.

Of course they'll take the easier option of stealing the car (and do pretty much whatever it takes to get it), it's too damned attractive to ignore.

[t99uk]

My brother had his BMW stolen. Broke in house took keys. Sleeping upstairs. Gone in morning. Never found again. (Surrey). I think a good very bright security light would help and scare them off more than alarms. Addition of a good steering lock (old school disc or pull through and key) even when shopping put on Everytime by habit in case they cloned key on laptop.

I now carry a heavy duty steering lock on all cars I have even popping to supermarket. Apart from other suggestions above if they really want your car they will take it even on trailers I have heard. It's a shame car thefts are on the rise again.

[Zetec-S]

hkz286 said:

rich12 said:

Always shocks me how many people on the internet think some of these things will stop them.
Buy a dog. They kill it.
Fit visual deterrents like bollards. They'll just make you unlock them whilst threatening you.
Blackjax. They'll get half way down the road and come back if they want it bad enough.
CCTV/Lights etc. They wear hoodies/hats etc.

I agree with making it harder etc but surely people realise if they want your car bad enough, this st will just piss them off.

I'd definitely not let them have the keys etc by default but there's no way in hell if they come into my house with weapons, i'd try to stop them.

I'd be trying to protect the house more than the car. Secure doors all round, better locks on windows, protective film on the glass...

Ed. said:

Or the end of the drive at which point they come back into your house even more violent and pissed off.

Blackjax is not half way down the road or at the end of the drive, its a few miles.

Edited by hkz286 on Wednesday 13th September 14:39

So they come back to your house in a few days once the vehicle's been recovered.

[Yipper]

South = bike thefts.
North = invader car thefts.

Bollards outside and multiple locked doors inside are the best bang for your security buck. If they have to break down 2 bollards and 4 doors to get the keys, they will give up.

[xjay1337]

PixelpeepS3 said:

2nd day i had the golf R i was walking to the car to pick other half up from the station around 11pm and a grey tracksuit with hood up type yoof was walking past, he happened to say to me 'nice cars those golf R's - what you had out of it...' - the car was up to a wall on the drive so he couldn't see the tail pipes and he hadn't even walked past the car yet so had pretty much zero viability of the car and he knew what it was...

remember thinking.. "oh god - it's gonna be gone in the morning.."

Touch wood nothing happened during the 2 years ownership, not even a stolen dustcap (previous cars always seemed to have bits pinched off them, astra VXR they took the bloody plastic roof gutter strips!) and i've had my 66 plate S3 in the same place for just over a year now with not so much as a sneeze on it.

i am in romford, essex which isn't a great area but i don't think we're in Birmingham type car crime league yet.

If it was a man with a moustache, top hat and cane would you have felt safer??

[Efbe]

jhonn said:

hkz286 said:

Also I don't really buy the whole "if they want it, they will take it". .. but in a practical sense I don't believe.

So... what bit are you having difficulty with?

Imagine you're a thief - why take the high-risk of trying to rob a bank/Post Office when for a much lower risk you can turnover a house, that has minimal security and non-prepared inhabitants for a return of £40k+; not bad for a nights work with very little chance of comeback or getting caught - minimal grief, maximum return.

Of course they'll take the easier option of stealing the car (and do pretty much whatever it takes to get it), it's too damned attractive to ignore.

how much will they actually make though?

[Terminator X]

Zetec-S said:

So they come back to your house in a few days once the vehicle's been recovered.

You can't surely live your life worried that people may visit your house and/or come back at some unspecified time if you haven't been accommodating enough. FFS buy what you want, secure it to reasonable a fashion and enjoy.

TX.

Edited by Terminator X on Thursday 14th September 00:11

[Sycamore]

I drive through an average enough housing estate on the way home from work in the West Mids.

There has been an RS3 parked on a driveway in one of the crappy streets for quite some time. If the problem is as common as it seems to be in the West Mids, I'm surprised the RS3 hasn't disappeared either. The owner must leave 2 large dogs sleeping in it.

I personally know 4 people who have had a Fiesta/Focus ST stolen and they've heard nothing of them since.

[jhonn]

Efbe said:

how much will they actually make though?

Hhhmm - don't know, it's a good question - I suppose it would depend on what they did with it - shipped abroad, broken, or cloned.

Breaking it into constituent parts could make it worth more than the car as a whole - lots of hassle though and time-consuming.

Even as a worst case - if they got 1/4 of the value that's still potentially £10k.

[AH33]

Need to start punishing entire families for this sort of thing, North Korea style

[Ryang94]

xjay1337 said:

As I said, ghost immobilisor is a much better option.

I would prefer his option to a ghost immobilisor.

Imagine they break into your house and confront you, you give them the keys and they proceed to try to start the vehicle. If it wont start the chances are they will just re enter the house and then demand you tell them how to start the car with possible physical implications.

If they are able to drive off slightly that means at least there is some distance between you and said criminals meaning there is more time for police etc to arive. They are more likely to run, they cant exactly drive back to you to get you to tell them.

[JoBlack]

jhonn said:

Hhhmm - don't know, it's a good question - I suppose it would depend on what they did with it - shipped abroad, broken, or cloned.

Breaking it into constituent parts could make it worth more than the car as a whole - lots of hassle though and time-consuming.

Even as a worst case - if they got 1/4 of the value that's still potentially £10k.

I watched one of those documentaries showing how they operate - a dedicated chop shop can strip an RS6 to its shell in under 4 hours. Parts get bundled into containers and end up in east europe. Scrotes can make up to ten grand lifting a high end car which can earn the gang three or four times that selling the parts. It's like motorbike theft - the chance of getting caught are minimal and they earn hugely more than selling drugs. Lots of high end cars like range rovers get containered out to africa.

[egor110]

Yipper said:

South = bike thefts.
North = invader car thefts.

Bollards outside and multiple locked doors inside are the best bang for your security buck. If they have to break down 2 bollards and 4 doors to get the keys, they will give up.

Surely if they really want the car they'd give your mrs or kids a slap and you'd remove the bollards pretty quickly ?

[Digga]

JoBlack said:

jhonn said:

Hhhmm - don't know, it's a good question - I suppose it would depend on what they did with it - shipped abroad, broken, or cloned.

Breaking it into constituent parts could make it worth more than the car as a whole - lots of hassle though and time-consuming.

Even as a worst case - if they got 1/4 of the value that's still potentially £10k.

I watched one of those documentaries showing how they operate - a dedicated chop shop can strip an RS6 to its shell in under 4 hours. Parts get bundled into containers and end up in east europe. Scrotes can make up to ten grand lifting a high end car which can earn the gang three or four times that selling the parts. It's like motorbike theft - the chance of getting caught are minimal and they earn hugely more than selling drugs. Lots of high end cars like range rovers get containered out to africa.

IMHO, this seems like a massive blind spot in UK crime prevention.

Firstly, not only are car thefts up, hugely, but secondly, whilst they seem quite aggravated about the war on drugs etc., they fail to see the connection; often the gangs involved in one criminal activity actually have their fingers in any number of devious pies. There is certainly no doubt that banging up a relatively small number of people could, very possibly, result in fairly significant reductions in crime.

[TooMany2cvs]

Digga said:

Firstly, not only are car thefts up, hugely

Let's put that in perspective.

In 2015, car thefts were at a damn-near-half-century low, down 70% in a decade.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/tr...

It has risen in the last two years - by 20% last year...
http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-news/consumer-new...
...but that just takes it back up to 2010-11 levels.

[OddCat]

This feels a bit like coming home from work to find a massive horse on your drive. And it is ceaselessly producing constant, copious, amounts of manure. A real $hit machine.

Do you:

a) grab a spade, and a bucket, and start shovelling $hit. And keep shovelling as fast as the horse is replacing it

b) shoot the horse (no point moving it as it will carry on doing the same thing somewhere else)

It seems all the debate here is around option a)..........

[Digga]

TooMany2cvs said:

Digga said:

Firstly, not only are car thefts up, hugely

Let's put that in perspective.

In 2015, car thefts were at a damn-near-half-century low, down 70% in a decade.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/tr...

It has risen in the last two years - by 20% last year...
http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-news/consumer-new...
...but that just takes it back up to 2010-11 levels.

I am reliably informed there is a bit more to it than that - the stats are being manipulated. Such as break-ins for car keys are/were not, necessarily being recorded as car crime.

[Zetec-S]

Terminator X said:

Zetec-S said:

So they come back to your house in a few days once the vehicle's been recovered.

You can't surely life your life worried that people may visit your house and/or come back at some unspecified time if you haven't been accommodating enough. FFS buy what you want, secure it to reasonable a fashion and enjoy.

TX.

I don't. I'll buy the car I want/can afford and secure it within reason.

My point was that if someone were to steal my car I'd rather they just got a move on a fked off pretty sharpish. I'd also prefer not to have it recovered as (a) I don't know what underlying damage they've done and (b) if they couldn't get away with it the first time they might try again using more 'persuasive' methods to deactivate the hidden immobiliser.

[Plate spinner]

The answer is probably a decent sized explosive packaged within the car. Call it the 'ultimate sacrifice pack' on the options list.

If a scrote nick it, you'll not want it back anyway. So let 'em have it, track it online and when it's in a safe area... arm system, detonate, BOOM!

Should also make sure the dash gives them a 3-2-1 countdown whilst engaging central locking.

One less S3, but one less scrote. Seems fair.