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

[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.

[neverraced]

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

[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.

[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. :-(

[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.

[neverraced]

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

[neverraced]

It's not keyless entry.

I take your points though, thanks.

[neverraced]

What sort of cost is the Autowatch immobiliser system, does anyone know, I really don't want to waste their time in getting them to quote.

Behind all this is the fact that these vans are tools of the trade, they are vital in our work, but I don't want to waste a load of money on them. So I'm looking for solutions that are cheap but effective, hence the protection of the OBD, and autoloks on the steering wheels. Deadlocks are great, but are expensive and require human intervention, slamlocks the same (and essential if you have tools or are carrying parcels, but we're not).

[neverraced]

Wheel clamp...........can you see drivers arriving home in the middle of the night from Scotland, it's brass monkeys - 5, are they going to bother to put a wheelclamp on, no chance.

There are a lot of low tech things that we could do, that owner operators would be happy to do. But these guys are modestly paid, not tremendously ambitious and they just want a quiet life.

The vans are tools of the trade to us, and although the latest generation of Sprinter is very nice to drive, they are a commodity and one that that we don't want to lose. We have over 50 of them.

[neverraced]

cootuk said:

Can't you get the dealer to lock out the unused spare key slots in the ecu by coding in duff keys?

Thanks - I didn't know that was possible tbh; but equally, I'm not sure I'd trust our MB dealer to do it properly either.

[neverraced]

daydotz said:

Surely considering the investment in these vehicles and they essential for your business why haven't you fitted tracker's potentially recovering your asse(potentially the theif) & potentially recovering the driver tools and equipment that are their livelihood

That's the point - we don't really see vans as an investment at all, they are just essential tools of the trade that we rent in, or hp or finance lease, and we tend to get rid of them at two years; so the only real business issue is that it affects insurance premiums if one gets nicked,and it's a pain in the ar$e to sort out when it happens (bearing in mind that I haven't had a van stolen for nearly 25 years, touch wood). We carry no tools or equipment at all, and rarely anything else, the vans tend to load early in the morning.

So anything over and above that which prevents the theft of the vehicle, is to me a waste of money.

[neverraced]

daydotz said:

Alarm or a sticker saying this vehicle has a tracker personally I'd be taking steps to deter thefts leased or finance these companies will potentially be looking for you for the shortfall

Apart from that I'm curious if you not using them for multi drop or trades you seem a reasonably chilled out boss any vacancies

I am one of the bosses yes. There is no shortfall on the finance, been there, done that. We are a logistics provider, mostly on demand. The downside is that our guys have to to work very inconsistent and irregular hours.

A tracker is another way forward, although it must be installed by an expert, the regular locations get checked by the pro's within a few minutes, and the trackers removed. The best installers will not divulge to anyone where they put them in vans.

[neverraced]

Yes I know about the tracking, and they have alarms and deadlocks too I believe.

We're talking to MB about these, but I am irritated that they didn't warn us of the current Sprinters' security shortcomings, so that we could have some preventative steps; forearmed is forewarned......

[neverraced]

xjay1337 said:

Between £300 and £400 depending on the car.

Thanks very much, not too bad I suppose, for the level of protection that it provides.

[neverraced]

Fast Bug said:

You should be able to track the new Sprinters via an app. It updates it's location every few minutes, so not 100%, but good enough

Yes I know, but how long before tealeaves know where the MB trackers are located?

It's also keyless start (not entry/exit) eeeek......

[neverraced]

Thanks so much for all of that Lord Marylebone. You didn't say what happened next, were they well and truly busted, proper custodials and everything? I was talking to another mate who runs around 80 Sprinters, he reckons that if you mechanically protect the ignition/key reader assembly then it makes it pretty impregnable (if there is such a thing).

[neverraced]

K321 said:

disable the obd port
take out the fuse that powers it
put sticker on the car to say obd port has been disabled

free and effective

So the fuse for the ODB covers only the ODB? That would certainly delay them wouldn't it, hopefully they'd move on.

[neverraced]

New 2019 Sprinter is going to have immobiliser, alarm and deadlocks (not slamlocks) - but still no OBD protection by all accounts. Seems crazy to me.

[neverraced]

Thanks so much again. As a company in the transport sector, we cannot afford the hi tec "solutions" anyway; and in any event, they don't seem to be solutions, the thieves just get cleverer and find a way around them!