Car stolen and my experience

Car stolen and my experience

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Discussion

Arif110

794 posts

213 months

Monday 15th January 2018
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hutchst said:
Good luck explaining (internal security doors) to prospective purchasers when you decide to sell your house...

Yes, of course this is a lovely area...
Just say that they're fire doors, & that you've always been paranoid about downstairs fires.

Gavia

Original Poster:

7,627 posts

90 months

Monday 15th January 2018
quotequote all
hutchst said:
Good luck explaining that to prospective purchasers when you decide to sell your house...

Yes, of course this is a lovely area...
I tend to rent houses out when I move, rather than sell given a choice, but even if I sell, the doors can be swapped and the ones I’ve seen look like internal doors anyway.

chryslerben said:
Hi Gav sorry to hear about your car being stolen, have you been in touch with BMW customer services regarding the tracking of the vehicle?

The Telematics module in your M4 can indeed tell you where the vehicle is, what direction it's travelling in, how fast it's going and vehicle status.

They could even talk to the person in the car from their call centre if they wanted to.

I know of cases where they've released the data to recover stolen vehicles previously so I don't see why there's an exception this time.
I signed the forms that th epolice gave me within a few hours of the theft happening. Nothing has come of it at all. Pretty certain the thieves were doing this to order and had all the equipment they needed to disable it.


DaveCWK

1,979 posts

173 months

Monday 15th January 2018
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People seen happy to fit child gates but I've often wondered why more people dont just have full doors right at the top of the stairs. Even a cheapie non reinforced with a lock would stop most people without a sledgehammer as you wouldn't be able to kick it down/take a run at it.

craig2003

1,206 posts

205 months

Monday 15th January 2018
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ChemicalChaos said:
Expect to see then turn in in Ghana
A right hand drive car sticks out like a sore thumb in Ghana, they are all left hand drive. I have been here for a year and thought the same when I initially came but have yet to see a single right hand drive car

TooMany2cvs

29,008 posts

125 months

Monday 15th January 2018
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craig2003 said:
ChemicalChaos said:
Expect to see then turn in in Ghana
A right hand drive car sticks out like a sore thumb in Ghana, they are all left hand drive. I have been here for a year and thought the same when I initially came but have yet to see a single right hand drive car
I dunno about Ghana, but some of the RHD Plymouth-Dakar cars auctioned in the Gambia were being converted to LHD within minutes of sale.

Swole

693 posts

120 months

Monday 15th January 2018
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OP, firstly sorry to hear. Good advice on the home security, I have all but the poles installed but is something I’m looking at.

I’m just going to throw a view in here, as I have wondered myself. I think that the hype in recent years over performance cars and how easy they are to come by has had an impact on how popular it would seem they are to steal. Anyone who is prepared to lay out £xxx per month can have what they like, so the streets are rife with desirable cars. Now I know car theft is an age-old thing, but the wave of ‘smart’ car theft has been born in some respect to the demand for these cars and their parts due to their popularity; supply grows to meet the demand. Previously only a few people would drive something sporty and therefore tales of aggrevated theft were infrequent, thinking Cosworth days, but now there that are hundreds of prestige cars in a 2mile radius, there’s an unlimited supply for thieves to pick from.

If people weren’t obsessed with cars/badges the way we are, if we were all driving Insignia’s, Mondeo’s and Picanto’s, I doubt we’d see half the car crime and the disgusting acts undertaken to steal them.

Like the OP, I live in a quiet rural setting, but I do fear that some little bstrds will come knocking one night for my C63, hence the security, and I watch my rear view to see if anyone is following upon approach to home.

Edited by Swole on Monday 15th January 13:00

Gavia

Original Poster:

7,627 posts

90 months

Monday 15th January 2018
quotequote all
I’m not so sure about that. There have always been affluent areas in every town where the cars on the drive have been nice and don’t see much difference now. There may be a lot more new cars, but they aren’t all performance cars. We tend to see the cars we like and blank out the rest, so our opinions are a bit jaded.

GC8

19,910 posts

189 months

Monday 15th January 2018
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TooMany2cvs said:
Yipper said:
As said many times before, the key to stopping home-invasion car-thefts is to have at least 3 strongly-locked doors between the car and the keys
There's nowhere at all in this house that's a minimum of three doors (lockable or unlockable) from the outside.
Time to dominate the stairs then Son!

Rich_W

12,548 posts

211 months

Monday 15th January 2018
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Gavia said:
I’m not so sure about that. There have always been affluent areas in every town where the cars on the drive have been nice and don’t see much difference now. There may be a lot more new cars, but they aren’t all performance cars. We tend to see the cars we like and blank out the rest, so our opinions are a bit jaded.
I often see a 17 plate RS6 parked on the road, let alone a drive. It's an "OK" area, and a bit of a cut through for traffic. But still! Strong balls on that guy!


Gavia

Original Poster:

7,627 posts

90 months

Monday 15th January 2018
quotequote all
Rich_W said:
I often see a 17 plate RS6 parked on the road, let alone a drive. It's an "OK" area, and a bit of a cut through for traffic. But still! Strong balls on that guy!

Doesn’t that depend where you live though? A house with no offroad parking in West London could cost £millions whereas round here it’s no more than £150k. Personally I wouldn’t do it, but there again, what’s the difference to me having it on my drive? If anything it does confuse a thief which house the car belongs to, whereas mine doesn’t.

NDA

21,488 posts

224 months

Monday 15th January 2018
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What a nightmare... sorry to read about that.

I don't know anything about BMW's, so was interested to read about 'Connected Drive' which, amongst many things, is marketed as having 'Navigation is a core service of ConnectedDrive, especially as the car's embedded SIM enables the car to transmit GPS and speed information to a cloud server....'

Most people would think this would be of use if a car was stolen. From your posts it sounds utterly useless.

Gavia

Original Poster:

7,627 posts

90 months

Monday 15th January 2018
quotequote all
NDA said:
What a nightmare... sorry to read about that.

I don't know anything about BMW's, so was interested to read about 'Connected Drive' which, amongst many things, is marketed as having 'Navigation is a core service of ConnectedDrive, especially as the car's embedded SIM enables the car to transmit GPS and speed information to a cloud server....'

Most people would think this would be of use if a car was stolen. From your posts it sounds utterly useless.
It was “sold” to me as meaning I didn't need a tracker. It’s about as useful as a chocolate fireguard. It was disabled by the thieves before they even got off the drive. In fact, two weeks on, the car is still showing as parked on my drive. There’s also a pretty robust discussion on a few forums about it being limited to you being within 1500metres of the car amd no clear decision either way.

My advice, as I’ve done on every car bar this one, is to fit a Cat 5 tracker and be certain.

Dimebars

881 posts

93 months

Tuesday 16th January 2018
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Not sure if this has been mentioned already but BMW CAN track the vehicle.

They need the investigating plod to fill in a request form and they're able to do so afterwards

Info here - http://f30.bimmerpost.com/forums/showthread.php?t=...

Maracus

4,229 posts

167 months

Tuesday 16th January 2018
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Gavia said:
LV. Pretty impressed with them

+1 for LV.

Just had a cycle claim of £1700 pay out within 3 hours of the claim being made on my home insurance.

Gavia

Original Poster:

7,627 posts

90 months

Tuesday 16th January 2018
quotequote all
Dimebars said:
Not sure if this has been mentioned already but BMW CAN track the vehicle.

They need the investigating plod to fill in a request form and they're able to do so afterwards

Info here - http://f30.bimmerpost.com/forums/showthread.php?t=...
Mentioned and answered twice already.

They can’t. The forms were completed inside three hours of the car going AWOL. Three weeks later and not a sign of it. Whatever ability BMW claim to have to track the car is bks.

Dog Star

16,079 posts

167 months

Tuesday 16th January 2018
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Maracus said:
Gavia said:
LV. Pretty impressed with them

+1 for LV.

Just had a cycle claim of £1700 pay out within 3 hours of the claim being made on my home insurance.
They really were good when I wrote off my E class - crashed on a Monday afternoon, all paid for, finance settled etc done and dusted on the following Tuesday morning. I never even had to fill in any forms etc. All done with a couple of phone calls.

Dimebars

881 posts

93 months

Tuesday 16th January 2018
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Gavia said:
Mentioned and answered twice already.

They can’t. The forms were completed inside three hours of the car going AWOL. Three weeks later and not a sign of it. Whatever ability BMW claim to have to track the car is bks.
Strange

I've seen more than one instance including the above where it's been used successfully.

Gavia

Original Poster:

7,627 posts

90 months

Tuesday 16th January 2018
quotequote all
Dimebars said:
Strange

I've seen more than one instance including the above where it's been used successfully.
That’s my personal and very real experience of it. It might not be the case for everyone, but for me the manufacturer fitted security is totally useless.

Dog Star

16,079 posts

167 months

Tuesday 16th January 2018
quotequote all
Gavia said:
That’s my personal and very real experience of it. It might not be the case for everyone, but for me the manufacturer fitted security is totally useless.
In any case - is there any value to you personally in getting the car back? You're better placed than most to know, but as far as I can see a claim is a claim is a claim. You've had the car stolen, or stolen and recovered, there will still be a claim and your premium will increase the same.

andy43

9,548 posts

253 months

Tuesday 16th January 2018
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Jazzy Jag said:
So did they get the keys from inside your house or use a key signal booster?

I just bought a £4 Faraday pouch off eBay to keep my keys in at night.

Works great, you can stand right next to the car and it won't open.
thumbup
Same here but I hadn't tested it yet!