Aren't steering wheel locks and security posts pointless?

[gc123]

tbh having sat in a room with a load (probably 100 odd security dealers at the time) and seeing how many were dumbfounded when shown a video of a thief breaking into a car and cutting the steering wheel with bolt cutters just to get the krooklock off nothing surprises me.
so the steering wheel is expensive ....ive seen cars with the steering shaft ragged off and the car stolen with molegrips to steer it.
thieves dont care i found the disklock that covered the complete steering wheel gave them most headaches, but if they want it its going.
all you can do is make there life as difficult as you can without putting yours or your loveones at risk.

 

[Haggisman]

tbh having sat in a room with a load (probably 100 odd security dealers at the time) and seeing how many were dumbfounded when shown a video of a thief breaking into a car and cutting the steering wheel with bolt cutters just to get the krooklock off nothing surprises me.
so the steering wheel is expensive ....ive seen cars with the steering shaft ragged off and the car stolen with molegrips to steer it.
thieves dont care i found the disklock that covered the complete steering wheel gave them most headaches, but if they want it its going.
all you can do is make there life as difficult as you can without putting yours or your loveones at risk.

Personally I would go with making it as difficult as possible if they're outside the house and as easy as possible if they're inside. Keys are in a pretty obvious place which isn't reachable through the letterbox, but hard to miss before they start to come upstairs, if they really want the car enough to break into the house, I'd rather they just took it TBH!

Helps that my car is a 5 year old EV, and my fiancé's a 10 year old no frills Suzuki, neither are particularly desirable

 

[Vertigo]

Personally I would go with making it as difficult as possible if they're outside the house and as easy as possible if they're inside. Keys are in a pretty obvious place which isn't reachable through the letterbox, but hard to miss before they start to come upstairs, if they really want the car enough to break into the house, I'd rather they just took it TBH!

Exactly this, which is what puts me off something like a Ghost.

 

[Feek]

These things are a visual deterrent that help protect your car against opportunists, nothing more.

I’ve only known one occurrence of vehicle break ins in my road and that was twenty years ago. I had an almost new Focus outside and it was the only car that wasn’t touched. I put that down to the Thatcham alarm stickers that were in the windows. I didn’t have a Thatcham alarm installed, I’d just got the stickers from a friend who was an installer.

If someone really wants it, they’ll get it.

 

[Iamzod]

Depends on the car, my Jag XE are easy to steal & they vanish all the time. There are loads about though so a disclock is fitted, they can just go nick another.

 

[jaybee]

The local crack heads round our way are the only thing we get every so often. They simply try car doors all round the area through the night until they find a car that was left unlocked. Scum.
If they find one, they just search it for stuff worth taking. They aren't after the car. Don't have the knowledge or skill.

 

[Nasher]

The local crack heads round our way are the only thing we get every so often. They simply try car doors all round the area through the night until they find a car that was left unlocked. Scum.
If they find one, they just search it for stuff worth taking. They aren't after the car. Don't have the knowledge or skill.

We had that for a while. But there were a couple of DIY justice incidents and it seemed to stop after that.

 

[ShivP]

Get some Ghost immobiliser stickers off ebay, and a steering lock, you're winning

 

[Manbatius]

Personally I would go with making it as difficult as possible if they're outside the house and as easy as possible if they're inside. Keys are in a pretty obvious place which isn't reachable through the letterbox, but hard to miss before they start to come upstairs, if they really want the car enough to break into the house, I'd rather they just took it TBH!

Helps that my car is a 5 year old EV, and my fiancé's a 10 year old no frills Suzuki, neither are particularly desirable

This is my mentality, my car is essentially boxed in, decent lighting, security cam, doorbell.

If they really want it they will get through the front door and the keys are easy enough to find before going upstairs. Car has a hidden tracker in it, so i'll know where to tell the police that someones wrapped it round a lamp post, then get the 33 pence the insurance company would offer. Also I know a school friends relative lived in this street. It is a low crime area, but they had their Scirocco stolen off the drive, full broke locks front door, inside for keys, this is when they were relatively newly release so some years ago.

I did look into ghost etc, but felt if they really wanted it, not worth the risk of them coming to find me.

Guess I have not answered the original question like many have put, they are not pointless, just depends on the thief.

Someone mentioned Fiestas, years ago when we had our Fiesta MK5 ST, the bumpers were a known target for thieves, to sell them so people could fit them to their standard fiesta!

 

[Vertigo]

I did look into ghost etc, but felt if they really wanted it, not worth the risk of them coming to find me.

Guess I have not answered the original question like many have put, they are not pointless, just depends on the thief.

Nah it's useful thanks. You and some others seem to have the same attitude as me, in that I want the deterrent factor and to make the car as hard to steal as possible without entering the house. If someone wants it badly enough that they're prepared to break into the house then I'd rather they just took it and left, it's only a car at the end of the day.

Maybe if you have a Ghost you should keep the keys in an obvious place just inside the house alongside a card with the Ghost sequence printed on it and a message saying "just take it and go"

 

[xs2man]

I haven't used any of the suggestions. If someone wants my car, take it. It's insured. I don't really fancy messing about with such devices every time I leave the car.

 

[Nasher]

Cheapest way is just remove fuses so the car won't start

I don't think we have quite got to the state where Bmw/Audi etc are requiring fuses to be "programmed in" yet. But check first lol

 

[shiver]

I primarily got one for the already mentioned visual deterrent but also to hopefully prevent opportunists stealing the steering wheel. It unfortunately seems quite common for people to take BMW M Sport steering wheels.

 

[Dangerous Dave]

I don't think disclocks will stop a theft if they want the car but will at least if there is another similar car move them on to that one first. A Golf R, purchased the same day, was stolen locally and had a disclock was gone in under 2 minutes without the keys or it having the keyless entry option.

 

[Werewolf]

The Ghost is vastly superior in terms of vehicle security, as physical steering locks can be removed with tools.

I would say security is best thought of in terms of layers. The more layers you can put in, the better.

Garaging the car out of sight is a big step forward.

Block the car in with a cheaper car.

Fit security gates.

Fit a tracker.

Have CCTV.

Have motion detection lighting.

Make your house hard to break into.

Live in a house which is not isolated.

etc

Unless the lighting is actually going to attract your attention, and not go off randomly all having it does is possibly give the scum a minor scare but they know most people don't seem to pay attention to it, and give them some light to work by.

Unfortunately any security system that triggers when it doesn't need to, especially lights just gets ignored by people and thieves tend to know that.

 

[Siliconslave]

Interestingly Land Rover are sending us some sleeping batteries for my wife's Evoque, they are normal sized batteries that turn the key off when it hasn't moved for 3 min, which kind of makes sense to prevent relay attacks.
We keep both our cars garaged whenever we're at home, but out and about its defiantly a concern that it'll get nicked by some down and out hairdresser...

 

[ShivP]

Interestingly Land Rover are sending us some sleeping batteries for my wife's Evoque, they are normal sized batteries that turn the key off when it hasn't moved for 3 min, which kind of makes sense to prevent relay attacks.
We keep both our cars garaged whenever we're at home, but out and about its defiantly a concern that it'll get nicked by some down and out hairdresser...

That's an interesting product - just had a look.
Do you think they will work whilst in the car, driving, e.g. on motorway where there is minimal 'movement'?

 

[SexyGreyFox]

Every time I see cars on a driveway with a steering wheel lock on or a security post at the driveway entrance, I'm forced to wonder what the point is.

Given that you need the keys to steal most cars these days, if they're going to break in for the keys, then they're just going to take the keys to the steering wheel lock and/or security post too, which are probably on the same keyring.

Or am I missing something?

A bit late to the party but experience I had early last year.
The Police were at my house twice to look at CCTV for two attempted thefts of two BMWs a couple of weeks apart.
Both times the thieves stood by the front door doing something, opened the car door and walked off.
I asked the Copper why they had walked off and he said they have steering wheel locks, they have copied the code by the front door but won't be able to get the steering wheel lock off but they may come armed next time with a grinder.
He said people should put their keys in a pouch that shields the thieves from getting their code and put a steering wheel lock on.
Last year when I bought a new car it was the first two things I bought - two pouches for a fiver and a steering wheel lock where you don't need a key.
Basically if you can get the thieves to go somewhere else without bother you've won that time.

 

[Vertigo]

That's an interesting product - just had a look.
Do you think they will work whilst in the car, driving, e.g. on motorway where there is minimal 'movement'?

I've often wondered why all modern keys don't have this 'sleep' feature whereby they stop broadcasting when they haven't moved for a while.

Doing it with the batteries is an interesting solution but you're right, if you're on a smooth journey and there isn't enough movement to trigger the batteries, presumably the key would go dead and the car would start squealing that it can't find the key.

FWIW, as I started this thread, I just had a Ghost installed.

 

[Jono8]

I haven't used any of the suggestions. If someone wants my car, take it. It's insured. I don't really fancy messing about with such devices every time I leave the car.

Ive always felt this way too.

People add so many inconvenient bits of nonsense to deter thieves etc, but i don’t want to sacrifice my convenience for the small chance my car gets stolen. If it does, that is what insurance is for.

I'll keep my easy keyless entry and start thanks.