My car's been stolen (Quick! To the internets!)

Stolen to order cars are now being had away by taking along matching clocks, ECU and key set. Plug them in and you're away with it.
 
Fuzz said:
Stolen to order cars are now being had away by taking along matching clocks, ECU and key set. Plug them in and you're away with it.
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Surely this only works on cars with crude electronics?

You'd have to have half the car to bits for that to work on mine, and it would need far more electronics than just a key, ECU and dials. For starters if you didn't change the J519 module (central electronic), then component protection would kick in and disable the non-authorized modules anyway.

So in addition to having all the car in pieces, you'd have to have a central electronics module with component protection removed for the serial numbers of the other electronics you want to change.

It'd be easier to either a) steal something else, or b) take it on a low-loader.
 
I'm with the above comments, glasses means nowt to you as a consumer.
Ask them to add the 30% forecourt markup and you might consider the offer ;)
 
Doesnt glasses include the retail dealer price? Did they use the trade in price?

If so, just take the retail figure from the guide and say you only buy from dealers as you are rubbish with cars and would never buy privately etc.
 
Theophany said:
Sign of the times when somebody nicks a Skoda :p

I remember at my first job I had a colleague who had lived in London and had a brand new Skoda. It was his pride and joy, he bought all the security kit for it - wheel lock, gearshift lock, immobiliser etc. One morning he came outside and found his car parked on the opposite side of the road with all the security gear left in a very neat pile beside it. The car was left unlocked with a hand written note with words to the effect of

"mate, if we wanted it, we'd have had it by now.

Your friendly neighbourhood car thieves."

Still makes me laugh :D
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That did make me chrotle!
 
When I had my Z4 stolen I went browsing AT with the guy on the phone.

I went on the basis that price guides were irrelevant. I needed a replacement like for like car that afternoon which needed to be covered by the settlement price we agreed. I crawled through the detail of the ads, dismissing anything with lesser options / higher mileage / without FSH explicitly stated. If you bought your current car at a dealer, filter out private ads too. Produce a shortlist of 3-4 like for like cars in a reasonable range, ie be prepared to travel maybe 100 miles, but maybe not as far as Scotland etc (unless the price is higher & helps make your case). Use that as a basis to formulate a value. Don't accept the lowest price car as you might find that it's a dog when you've viewed it, after full & final settlement is agreed. You'll struggle to get the top price, but the average of the bunch is fair imo. Don't allow them to speculate on the discount you might be able to negotiate with the seller though.

Good luck... :)
 
rs1800 said:
Doesnt glasses include the retail dealer price? Did they use the trade in price?
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it certainly did last time I looked.

It had trade ,part ex, and retail prices all listed separately. No idea where the perception comes from that glasses means nothing to consumers. Granted the trade price does, but thats what the retail price is for !
 
Just discovered that the Sat Nav I thought I had left in the car when it was stolen was, in fact, stuffed into a obscure corner of my house. Probably shouldn't have bought that replacement then.... Oops.
 
But even the "retail" price is useless if the market only has cars (of your spec/age/mileage) that are more expensive.

The only value that matters is the value of replacing the car like-for-like.
 
paradigm said:
The only value that matters is the value of replacing the car like-for-like.
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But this is a fairly difficult number to get hold of without actually buying a car, though. You have a selection of imperfect numbers to choose from - retail price in Glass's, advertised prices for similar cars on Autotrader (And you wont know if these are like for like cars until you view nor will you know the actual price you can get it for).

Therefore in absence of knowing the true value, it's a good start.
 
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