High performance car left open at car dealers overnight!

[leemarkadams]

Hello all and apologies if this seems like a 'cool story bro' post, been thinking of looking at an E60 M5 for a while and a decent garage near me (Merc etc) had one in stock, so on the way back from seeing some friends last night the wife and I decided to go and see if it was still there, as the wife wanted to have a look also (as she is way more observant than me).

Anyway, the M5 was there and we had a look around it (it was bout 9pm) and the wife mentioned that it looked unlocked, so doubting her she tried the driver's door and it only opened! No alarm, nothing. To make matters worse she then saw the vehicle documents in the folders in the car (on the passenger seat).

Perhaps we are far too honest but we tried to call the garage (no answer so left a message) and also called the security company responsible to let then know. Anyway, after leaving lengthy messages with the garage (including our full address and names) we took the documents (as we were going back to look at the car today) to stop any not-so-honest people taking advantage of the situation.

So, we returned this morning and upon informing the salesman there and returning the documents (including V5) he did not really seem to care, stating the area has CCTV etc, mind you I was interested in the car so he let me take it out for a test drive......and very nice it was too, just a shame about the 19mpg!

Lee

[Birdster]

Perhaps he wanted it to go missing. ;-)

Seriously though if that's their attitude makes you wonder how good they are.

[mike9009]

Had a similar experience at a mazda main dealer. Had been away for the weekend but spotted an mx5. This was late on Sunday. The car was open with keys in the ignition! Took the keys, locked the car and posted through their letter box......

My good deed for the day...

Mike

[TheTurbonator]

Hmm BMW you say. Probably because they know leaving it locked won't make the slightest bit of difference.

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

[crmcatee]

mike9009 said:

Had a similar experience at a mazda main dealer. Had been away for the weekend but spotted an mx5. This was late on Sunday. The car was open with keys in the ignition! Took the keys, locked the car and posted through their letter box......

My good deed for the day...

Mike

Whilst one of the salesbods gets his mate to drop him off as he's picking up an MX5 which his other salesman has left the keys in. Cue guy turning up, calling his mate everything for forgetting to put the keys in the MX5

[Ozzie Osmond]

I should go carefully if I were you. There is a specific offence under the Criminal Attempts Act 1981, section 9. It is intended to catch, amongst others, would-be crooks who go along the street or through a car park trying the door handles. Your interference may have been innocent but you could easily find yourself struggling to defend yourself if charged.

"Interference with vehicles.

" 1) A person is guilty of the offence of vehicle interference if he interferes with a motor vehicle or trailer or with anything carried in or on a motor vehicle or trailer with the intention that an offence [essentially theft of or from the vehicle] shall be committed by himself or some other person."

[whoami]

Ozzie Osmond said:

I should go carefully if I were you. There is a specific offence under the Criminal Attempts Act 1981, section 9. It is intended to catch, amongst others, would-be crooks who go along the street or through a car park trying the door handles. Your interference may have been innocent but you could easily find yourself struggling to defend yourself if charged.

"Interference with vehicles.

" 1) A person is guilty of the offence of vehicle interference if he interferes with a motor vehicle or trailer or with anything carried in or on a motor vehicle or trailer with the intention that an offence [essentially theft of or from the vehicle] shall be committed by himself or some other person."

[Sump]

whoami said:

Ozzie Osmond said:

I should go carefully if I were you. There is a specific offence under the Criminal Attempts Act 1981, section 9. It is intended to catch, amongst others, would-be crooks who go along the street or through a car park trying the door handles. Your interference may have been innocent but you could easily find yourself struggling to defend yourself if charged.

"Interference with vehicles.

" 1) A person is guilty of the offence of vehicle interference if he interferes with a motor vehicle or trailer or with anything carried in or on a motor vehicle or trailer with the intention that an offence [essentially theft of or from the vehicle] shall be committed by himself or some other person."

He makes perfectly valid point.

You need a rogering up the arse in prison, pretty sure that will see the end of any eye rolling action from you!

[Defcon5]

A garage near me had every single car on their forecourt broken into and satnav/cd player stolen a while back.

Thats an awful lot of bent back doors and smashed windows. Leaving them unlocked halves the cost of fixing them.

[whoami]

Sump said:

whoami said:

Ozzie Osmond said:

I should go carefully if I were you. There is a specific offence under the Criminal Attempts Act 1981, section 9. It is intended to catch, amongst others, would-be crooks who go along the street or through a car park trying the door handles. Your interference may have been innocent but you could easily find yourself struggling to defend yourself if charged.

"Interference with vehicles.

" 1) A person is guilty of the offence of vehicle interference if he interferes with a motor vehicle or trailer or with anything carried in or on a motor vehicle or trailer with the intention that an offence [essentially theft of or from the vehicle] shall be committed by himself or some other person."

He makes perfectly valid point.

You need a rogering up the arse in prison, pretty sure that will see the end of any eye rolling action from you!

[lyonspride]

Defcon5 said:

A garage near me had every single car on their forecourt broken into and satnav/cd player stolen a while back.

Thats an awful lot of bent back doors and smashed windows. Leaving them unlocked halves the cost of fixing them.

^^ This is what I was going to say, it's not uncommon for garages to leave cars unlocked.... Most of the damage done to a car during a theft, is the actual breaking in.

[blugnu]

Walking past my local I heard the fan kick in on an idling Mazda6. Car unlocked, keys in and engine running at about 9pm. Not much fuel left mind. I posted the keys through and left a voicemail to cover myself.

[sulli]

Ozzie Osmond said:

I should go carefully if I were you. There is a specific offence under the Criminal Attempts Act 1981, section 9. It is intended to catch, amongst others, would-be crooks who go along the street or through a car park trying the door handles. Your interference may have been innocent but you could easily find yourself struggling to defend yourself if charged.

"Interference with vehicles.

" 1) A person is guilty of the offence of vehicle interference if he interferes with a motor vehicle or trailer or with anything carried in or on a motor vehicle or trailer with the intention that an offence [essentially theft of or from the vehicle] shall be committed by himself or some other person."

LOL, you have even gone to the effort of quoting the offence word for word

[james280779]

Ozzie Osmond said:

I should go carefully if I were you. There is a specific offence under the Criminal Attempts Act 1981, section 9. It is intended to catch, amongst others, would-be crooks who go along the street or through a car park trying the door handles. Your interference may have been innocent but you could easily find yourself struggling to defend yourself if charged.

"Interference with vehicles.

" 1) A person is guilty of the offence of vehicle interference if he interferes with a motor vehicle or trailer or with anything carried in or on a motor vehicle or trailer with the intention that an offence [essentially theft of or from the vehicle] shall be committed by himself or some other person."

not really, interference with vehicle is to cover prising open doors and things of that ilk where damage is caused and its easy to show intent, the only exception might be if you had a witness stating he had seen him walking around randomly trying numerous car doors. Even then he would just be moved on after a quick search (providing nothing found)
opening a door on an unlocked vehicle is hardly interference, add on top of that theft as defined in the theft act, section 1, 1968 then your pretty hard pushed to have any case whatsoever.

[DonkeyApple]

Defcon5 said:

A garage near me had every single car on their forecourt broken into and satnav/cd player stolen a while back.

Thats an awful lot of bent back doors and smashed windows. Leaving them unlocked halves the cost of fixing them.

I suspect this is a logical point.

Like the burglars in a particular area in general the car thieves are all known to the police. They also know that the cars on the forecourt are under CCTV, won't have random valuables in them, hard to remove from the premises and any action they take will be heavily prosecuted by the company.

Much easier to just go and break into the Focus down the road where the owner has left some valuables and there's no CCTV and the owner won't come after them.

In general terms I suspect it's probably quite safe leaving cars unlocked on a lit, CCTV forecourt etc.

[rovermorris999]

To prove an offence you have to show intent (mens rea) as well the act itself (actus reus). There was no intent to commit a crime here, the Op has 'reasonable excuse'. I hope my memory of the latin spelling is correct, it's been a long time.

[Leptons]

sulli said:

Ozzie Osmond said:

I should go carefully if I were you. There is a specific offence under the Criminal Attempts Act 1981, section 9. It is intended to catch, amongst others, would-be crooks who go along the street or through a car park trying the door handles. Your interference may have been innocent but you could easily find yourself struggling to defend yourself if charged.

"Interference with vehicles.

" 1) A person is guilty of the offence of vehicle interference if he interferes with a motor vehicle or trailer or with anything carried in or on a motor vehicle or trailer with the intention that an offence [essentially theft of or from the vehicle] shall be committed by himself or some other person."

LOL, you have even gone to the effort of quoting the offence word for word

AKA copy and paste.

[Captain Muppet]

Leptons said:

sulli said:

Ozzie Osmond said:

I should go carefully if I were you. There is a specific offence under the Criminal Attempts Act 1981, section 9. It is intended to catch, amongst others, would-be crooks who go along the street or through a car park trying the door handles. Your interference may have been innocent but you could easily find yourself struggling to defend yourself if charged.

"Interference with vehicles.

" 1) A person is guilty of the offence of vehicle interference if he interferes with a motor vehicle or trailer or with anything carried in or on a motor vehicle or trailer with the intention that an offence [essentially theft of or from the vehicle] shall be committed by himself or some other person."

LOL, you have even gone to the effort of quoting the offence word for word

AKA copy and paste.

So not too much effort, plus it's nice to have all the information there just in case someone wants to get all pedantic and rip holes in his post.

[garypotter]

Several years ago a local import dealership was broken into and the box on the wall containing ALL of their stock vehicle keys was stolen, they didnt last long after that incident, I suppose it did not matter if the cars were locked or unlocked.

[garypotter]

Several years ago a local import dealership was broken into and the box on the wall containing ALL of their stock vehicle keys was stolen, they didnt last long after that incident, I suppose it did not matter if the cars were locked or unlocked.