What would you do?
Author
Discussion

Al Wyn

Original Poster:

866 posts

239 months

Friday 17th July 2009
quotequote all
Friends of a chap at work have had all keys to their old P reg Mk3 Golf stolen...the car has an aftermarket alarm and immobiliser fitted they dont know the make/model. The AA said they could open the car for them to retrieve belongings but the alarm would go off obviously. In my eyes the cost of an alarm guy coming out to shut the alarm up and by pass immobiliser and a new lock set and keys must be near the value of the car surely??? So hence the question `what would you do?`

mattman73

16 posts

213 months

Friday 17th July 2009
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get the AA to force the bonnet and disconnect the battery - if you can see the alarm box as well - smash it with a hammer!

Tame Technician

2,467 posts

235 months

Friday 17th July 2009
quotequote all
The above will stop the alarm but wont get round the immobiliser.

You then need to find the immobilisers control box, will be under the dash some where with only black wires coming out of it, Most car wires are coloured so should be obvious.

Then you need to buy pass the immobiliser. I had to do it to an Old Nova GTE I had, the unit went faulty and it was a high spec (at the time) Clifford, the Clifford guy said its £150 to remove it, but i tried and managed it myself.

Not sure if its s good Idea to post on a public forum how to do this, but its pretty obvious once you find the box and open it up. To get a thatcham approval, doesn't mean the car cant be stolen, it means it will withstand attack for a certain length of time, it took me about an 2 hours to fully bypass the Clifford, so It did well.

Al Wyn

Original Poster:

866 posts

239 months

Friday 17th July 2009
quotequote all
All sorted now...AA turned up gained entry alarm going off etc lifted it onto a low loader took it straight to the local VW... they matched a key to the car and reprogrammed the security on the car the bill for that little lot £110 inc vat... what a happy ending.

DaveL86

884 posts

208 months

Saturday 18th July 2009
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Al Wyn said:
All sorted now...AA turned up gained entry alarm going off etc lifted it onto a low loader took it straight to the local VW... they matched a key to the car and reprogrammed the security on the car the bill for that little lot £110 inc vat... what a happy ending.
Amazingly cheap! Glad it worked out but I would of put money on it being at least £250.

Nice that VW could sort out an after market immo too.

FunkySon

139 posts

254 months

Saturday 18th July 2009
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You need to check with your insurance company as to whether that's acceptable to them.

Bear in mind that there is someone else out there with a set of keys for your car. Your insurance company probably won't cover you for theft unless you actually change all the locks.

Same think happened to me a couple of years back on my mk 4 golf. Cost about 1k at VW to replace all the locks and supply another remote key.