Preventing Car Theft

[mmc45414]

Most of the cars I've owned and spent my automotive career working on could be called 'high profile' or 'highly targeted' when it comes to thefts.

Any you know of that got nicked? I would also imagine that the client base may have been choosy on using the shop you were at.

I know a common MO for motorcycle theft is to lift a high end motorcycle into the back of a truck and drive off.

Years ago dirt bikes in Ohio were not titled. You would see things like nine hundred pound Gold Wings parked in front of the door to discourage the practice of stealing a truck, crashing backwards through the door, throw as many bikes without titles in as would fit, take off and take the bikes and ditch the stolen truck. You would also see the shop truck parked in front of the door overnight.

[Joe in PNG]

The "Flappy Paddle" gear change has been a thing for performance cars for a long time. It's usually a computer controlled manual, where the computer tells the transmission when to shift... and yeah, it lets you tell the computer the same thing via the buttons.

My Honda motorbike has this function. It's a good thing in heavy traffic or long trips to just put it in automatic mode, and let the computer do the work.

[mmc45414]

My Honda motorbike has this function. It's a good thing in heavy traffic or long trips to just put it in automatic mode, and let the computer do the work.

I know the Goldwing is supposed to be really good at this, if you are the Goldwing type.

[Joe in PNG]

I know the Goldwing is supposed to be really good at this, if you are the Goldwing type.

I've got the NC700 DCT sports touring bike, which works pretty well too.

And it's different enough from a standard bike that getting it going would likely be tricky for an opportunist.

[Crashpad]

I know the Goldwing is supposed to be really good at this, if you are the Goldwing type.

I've got the NC700 DCT sports touring bike, which works pretty well too.

And it's different enough from a standard bike that getting it going would likely be tricky for an opportunist.

I rode an African Twin DCT last year . For longer trips it would be a nice thing to have. Especially after a full day riding technical trails.

[JRB]

Any you know of that got nicked? I would also imagine that the client base may have been choosy on using the shop you were at.

A decent few I know of got stolen. Thinking about it, more folks I know got their tow rigs stolen than their cars, typically because the trucks were outside and the cars were safely in a garage. Ford 7.3L Powerstroke and Dodge 12v or 24v 5.9L's were the most common, LB7/LBZ Duramaxes following closely behind. A number of 2000's era Tahoes and Sierra/Silverados as well.
Cars stolen were usually Mustangs or Hondas, often heavily modified. I noticed a correlation between guys who were at meets bragging about all of their nice parts to total strangers every week, and whose cars were getting stolen, stripped, and dumped in the desert. I had suspicions about a few guys at those meets and talked to local LE buddies, even talking directly to their auto theft detectives about them. Not sure if that ever went anywhere.
I also talked to their auto theft guys on how to best select and set up bait cars. They were using a couple of shitty old beaters, loading them with cameras and leaving the keys in them. That got a few opportunistic tweakers but not the pros. I was trying to get them to find a nice Powerstroke Diesel, Foxbody 5.0L Mustang, Acura Integra and leave them parked in specific parts of town with the same setup. Never panned out sadly.

[mmc45414]

I noticed a correlation between guys who were at meets bragging about all of their nice parts to total strangers every week, and whose cars were getting stolen, stripped, and dumped in the desert.

20-30 years ago a friend had his Corvette parts stolen from his barn by people who cut a hole through in the metal siding next to the door wired to the alarm. 20-30 years ago I had my guns stolen (before I had a safe) from a closet I had reinforced really well by people who brought the tools to get through the reinforcements. I am pretty sure 20-30 years ago we both befriended the wrong guy.

[Bucky]

Remember the big boats of the 1960s that had really wide brake pedals? The first time I drove one, my left foot mashed the brake, hard.

My first car had that wide pedal. It also had manual 4 wheel drum brakes. The wide pedal made sense at the time, being you needed both feet on the pedal to effectively stop the car.

[Totem Polar]

…in high dudgeon mode

[drift] I love this [/drift]

[Coyotesfan97]

When I first started in the late 80s the most stolen cars around were Monte Carlos, Regals, and Cutlasses be cause all you needed was a flat head screwdriver to break the plastic column, remove a gear, and start with the screwdriver. These were mostly stolen to drive around. If you saw any of those cars it was an automatic stolen check. At one point Dodge Neons were stolen a lot for the same reason. Hondas have alway been popular targets but they’re getting chopped for the parts.

There were nights we’d have multiple GM pickups and SUVs stolen in one night. Usually the surrounding cities got hit too. It was the pros coming up from Mexico with a list. They’d mostly get used to run drugs across the border. Sometimes you’d hear stories about people finding their truck in Mexico driven by Mexican police.