MERCEDES SPRINTER STOLEN WITHIN 3 MINUTES.

[neverraced]

A quiet close in a largeish Home Counties town; it's after 11pm and a man appears next to our 2016 Sprinter van; he removes the seal around the front quarter window and takes it out; arm inside, he opens the door and gets in, closes the door and plugs his laptop into the OBD; 60 seconds later he's coded the key blank key that he's brought with him; he puts it into the ignition and calmly drives away. A £27k van driven away as calm as you like, no fuss, never to be seen again, despite the £1000 reward broadcast to at least 10,000 people on Facebook. Mercedes claim this can't be done, and they are not remotely interested in helping, Head Office included, their arrogance is palpable.

Does this make me feel inclined to buy four more of the exciting new £30k Sprinter in the next month? No, I think we'll buy some crappy Citroen/Renault/Vauxhalls* for cash this time and flog them at two years, before they've had it.

• Yes, I am fully aware that other crappy vans also exist.

Edited by neverraced on Tuesday 5th June 10:00

[Krikkit]

Do you have it on CCTV? Surely they can't baulk if you have some video of him doing it.

[neverraced]

"Baulk at it"? You misunderstand me: the vehicle is fully insured and the payment is forthcoming shortly; my point about Mercedes is that they are not inclined to help in any way: they don't accept, or even acknowledge that the vehicle is pi55 easy to steal, and apparently, nor can they "do anything at all" to prevent it re-entering the Mercedes network at some later point.

We have not been able to lay our hands on any CCTV as yet either; not that it would do any good I don't suppose, these people are not amateurs.

[t400ble]

Always been the same, and with transits

Standard security is rubbish. Need a 'ghost' alarm unit installing.

[neverraced]

I understand that armoured lockable protection around the OBD is the way to go; does anyone have any experience of this please?

[CallorFold]

Straight forward disklok will be more effective. Problem with the OBD port modifications, whether that's preventing them being accessed, or re-locating them to elsewhere in the vehicle - the guy breaking in to steal it, isn't going to find that out until he's already in. Whether that's a carefully removed, or completely smashed out window, you've still got a problem to sort out. Disklok at least provides a visual deterrent which should hopefully prevent someone even trying to get in, in the first place.

[neverraced]

That is indeed a point, but I really want a solution that avoids human intervention; whether a driver will remember, or bother, to put a disklok back on when he gets home at 2am is the problem. I thought we might have some stickers made up to the effect that the OBD is protected, to put on the windows.

[Monkeylegend]

neverraced said:

A quiet close in a largeish Home Counties town; it's after 11pm and a man appears next to our 2016 Sprinter van; he removes the seal around the front quarter window and takes it out; arm inside, he opens the door and gets in, closes the door and plugs his laptop into the OBD; 60 seconds later he's coded the key blank key that he's brought with him; he puts it into the ignition and calmly drives away.

You or somebody else presumably watched him do all this?

[neverraced]

Monkeylegend said:

You or somebody else presumably watched him do all this?

No-one - I surmised the lot; I now discover that at least 90% of modern Sprinters are stolen in precisely this way. And that you don't in fact need the £15k computer that Merc dealers tell you, you can key re-coding software from eBay for just a few ££'s. :-(

[Monkeylegend]

neverraced said:

Monkeylegend said:

You or somebody else presumably watched him do all this?

No-one - I surmised the lot; I now discover that at least 90% of modern Sprinters are stolen in precisely this way. And that you don't in fact need the £15k computer that Merc dealers tell you, you can key re-coding software from eBay for just a few ££'s. :-(

Where did you discover that out of interest?

[neverraced]

Not from anyone criminal, if you're wondering. From talking to various electronic security experts, that was the consensus of opinion. Funnily enough, although he stands to make nothing out of it, the main one recommended diskloks on all the remaining Sprinters, but I am opting for the secured OBD option.

[anonymous-user]

for the sake of a £30k van and the associated disruption it can cause to a business, I would go for the protected OBD strategy AND a disklok

[Monkeylegend]

No, I was just thinking if it was factual and could be proven beyond doubt as opposed to a presumption, then maybe more pressure could be exerted on Mercedes via the media or some such.

BMW tried to sweep their theft issues under the carpet but had to relent finally and acknowledge they had an issue.

[neverraced]

Good thought, yes I probably will for all of them.

[ilikejam]

If you spend 10 minutes on youtube you'll find numerous videos of high end Mercs being nicked where one thief just holds a laptop up to the outside wall of a building and the car unlocks, while another one jumps in and starts it

[Fast Bug]

I'd fit slam locks or deadlocks on all doors (cab and cargo area).

ilikejam said:

If you spend 10 minutes on youtube you'll find numerous videos of high end Mercs being nicked where one thief just holds a laptop up to the outside wall of a building and the car unlocks, while another one jumps in and starts it

Not just Mercedes, but pretty much anything with keyless entry

[xjay1337]

Fit any number of decent aftermarket immos, Ghost Autowatch etc, as well as physical security IE disclock etc.

[neverraced]

It's not keyless entry.

I take your points though, thanks.

[Buzypea]

I bought these on Amazon for a couple of quid when I was worried my Fiesta ST might be nicked using the OBD key clone method. Window stickers saying "Attention OBD port disabled". My thinking was any would be thief would probably move on to the next car and not even bother trying. The car never got nicked so they might have worked for all I know

https://www.amazon.co.uk/White-87mm-30mm-Security-...

[r11co]

Buzypea said:

I bought these on Amazon for a couple of quid when I was worried my Fiesta ST might be nicked using the OBD key clone method. Window stickers saying "Attention OBD port disabled". My thinking was any would be thief would probably move on to the next car and not even bother trying. The car never got nicked so they might have worked for all I know

https://www.amazon.co.uk/White-87mm-30mm-Security-...

There was someone in here producing something similar to these when the whole BMW thing kicked off. I went one step further than you though and fitted a dummy OBD port in the slot and tucked and wire-tied the real one in as obscure a place I could get it to behind dashboard/sound deadening. If you want to be really evil you can wire the port to send 12v uninterrupted current into the data connections of whatever gadget the scrote is attempting to freak your security with.

Edited by r11co on Tuesday 5th June 17:15