Wife's car stolen from our driveway overnight

[Conscript]

Exactly the same thing happened to someone up our road a couple of years back. Said he stirred in the early hours as he heard a slight scrape of a car going over the hump on his driveway, but as it's shared with his neighbor, assumed they were just going out early. Woke up a few hours later, his Merc was gone. No forced entry, keys still secured in the house but near the front.

I've now got into the habit of disabling my keys before I hang them up each night, but I've also got a steering lock like it's the eighties. I figure that if they're trying to be quiet, having to cut that off might put them off.

 

[BUDFORCE]

Has your car been in a garage recently?

 

[Gazanimal]

Has your car been in a garage recently?

No. Not for quite a while.

 

[jaybee]

Yeah there were some funky immobilisers on after market.
I had one that had a thing you plugged in that was like a usb stick.

My celica had a one off funky alarm in it. One of my mates was an alarm fitter and electronics guy that also did security.
He modified my alarm so that if the power went then there was a battery backed up warehouse fire alarm sounder hidden in the centre tunnel.
They are really high frequency and very nasty up close, after 15 secs or so you really couldn't stand to be in the car.
It was battery backed up and to disable it you needed to remove the cigarette tray and reach into the tunnel for a toggle switch.

I forgot all about it when I sold the car so I bet someone had some fun with that at some point in the future.

I had a Vauxhall zafira that when I wanted to do something involving disconnecting the battery, you had to do it within X seconds of having the keys in the ignition or something. This was built in OEM. Not had that on any other car.

I had a couple of cars with 3rd party immobilisers back in the day. These had physical fobs not built into the main car key like OEM modern stuff. One had prongs you touched onto a receiver by the steering column, and the one on my old Golf GTi you just swiped under the steering column in the right spot and it read it.

Manufacturers should be held to account for modern theft frankly. It's not on.

 

[Tinders]

I remember the late 80’s when nicking a car and joy riding was a popular hobby for many. Then manufacturers upped their game, cars and radios were un-nickable, I had a pug with the keypad immobiliser.

Such a shame we have gone backwards. I know quite a few folk that have a ghost immobiliser installed, that along with a diskloc. The reality is that these cars are stolen to order, even ordinary cars, parts have become so expensive that it’s not uncommon to see a corsa or a Yaris with the front end missing.