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.

 

[Nasher]

Physical security?

I can remember when many cars were nigh on impossible to insure in London as the physical security was just a laugh. Around the time of the Sierra/Escort cosworths.
It was common joke that a ford key was almost a get into any car key
I opened an Astra in the works carpark and got in to realise it wasn't my car due to the junk on the passenger seat, and that was the supposed high security locks.
Locks wear and get laughably easy to turn when they are worn.
Lack of immobilisers meant you could do the film special of bumping the starter, from the ignition or under the bonnet.

Alarms were useful for a few years, before they became so sensitive and loud that everyones reaction was not "omg a car alarm is going off I better check if its being stolen" to "FFS will someone shut that car alarm off"

So summary, there has always been evolution in making cars harder to steal, but it always got a limited shelf life before the scrotes catchup and make the prevention mechanisms more a pain for the owner than a negative to the thieves.

Disclocs/bars became a thing for a while but they all had flaws as well and the proliferation of actual useful 18v tools means many can be defeated physically very quickly as well.

By the 00s cars became pretty secure. They were only really being stolen via the keys being stolen, which was far less common as the car thief also needed to break and enter a house or hold someone up. Way more risky.

Any physical security is better than what we have now, there is no risk for the thieves. They have it unlocked and ready to go before they even approach it. No suspicion from those nearby, no noise, no potential messy situations.

Park a Range Rover in London now for any length of time and it's gone. Basically an expensive Boris bike (vanishes from the street and re-appears in Africa). Insurance premiums went to the Moon.

 

[Gazanimal]

Parents had a Fiesta stolen in the same way a couple of years ago. It turned up about a week later on a field in a rough end of town, completely battered. Insurance company wrote it off. The police reckoned it had been used for robberies or other crimes.

This is what I'm expecting or never to find it tbh.

Just feels like a violation and predatory.

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

By the 00s cars became pretty secure. They were only really being stolen via the keys being stolen, which was far less common as the car thief also needed to break and enter a house or hold someone up. Way more risky.

Any physical security is better than what we have now, there is no risk for the thieves. They have it unlocked and ready to go before they even approach it. No suspicion from those nearby, no noise, no potential messy situations.

Park a Range Rover in London now for any length of time and it's gone. Basically an expensive Boris bike (vanishes from the street and re-appears in Africa). Insurance premiums went to the Moon.

I was trying to think of early 00s and nothing special happened then, apart from I guess all manufacturers actually installing decent alarm immobilisers from the factory
As said this isnt a static thing.

Your applying Brexiteer levels time distortion here. At X point in time Y was good so we should go to X, completely ignoring that the world has moved on.
00s alarms and immobilisers had their issues as well.

There was an article last week on the BBC about a violent car gang who were still doing it the old school method. Breaking into homes or intercepting people and "asking" for the keys.

 

[HoneyBadger]

Sorry to hear about your wife’s car. At least no one was hurt.

 

[NickK]

Keys in a metal buscuit tin with metal lid.

I remeber being woken up once and I thought that was odd. I’d not put my keys in it for once and at 2am in the morning my car lights were on and the car unlocked. I could hear a car motor running a distance away.
Oddly enough it got locked up and keys back in the bin.

I think what happened was they were after nextdoor’s big black merc suv but my keys got intercepted.

I thought recently aomeone had put a jammer to prevent the lock working.. turns out the batteries in the remote needed replacing

 

[xs2man]

Seems odd for them to nick an 11 year old Ford that's only worth a few grand. Presumably they'll actually swap plates and use it to commit further crimes with the intent of abandoning it, rather than stealing a car to sell it or it's parts.

I was thinking exactly this.... Until....

Parts are expensive/long wait times so it may well be stripped down and sold in bits

 

[HoneyBadger]

I hope I never find out, but the Cupra has an app whereby you set primary, secondary and guest users. Any primary or secondary users need a pin, and can do things like lock the car, turn it off, lights on and ventilation etc. but you can also track the location via the app. Although a would be theif could get in and drive it (as a guest) they don’t have any advanced infotainment functions and can’t disable sharing the cars location.

(They would still need to get by the gated driveway, CCTV and 5 dogs….)

 

[Illusion]

This happened to a friend of mine a few months ago, it wasn’t even a particularly desirable car (~2016ish Jaguar XF)

The neighbours door camera barely saw the shadows of two people before it was being driven away

 

[Jonnycoupe]

Sometimes the complex electronic theft is preferable as if they want the car a mechanical key theft is a different kettle of fish

 

[Iamzod]

This is a worry I have with my Jaguar XE. I'm in a Facebook owners group and they keep getting nicked.

Mine may be partucularly desireable as a parts car as it's full of options which are visible externally like the HUD and dynamic cruise.

It spends the night with a disclock on it now, two ring cameras pointing at it & soon i think a Ghost 2 will be fitted.

 

[Iamzod]

Sometimes the complex electronic theft is preferable as if they want the car a mechanical key theft is a different kettle of fish

Unless it's something very special, i don't see them taking that risk. Most seem to be opportunist scum wanting an easy, low risk theft.

 

[JRS]

Sometimes the complex electronic theft is preferable as if they want the car a mechanical key theft is a different kettle of fish

Unfortunately not true for everything with a key - la Citroën is incredibly easy to hotwire. The ignition barrel is in a little pod below the steering wheel, and it's uncovered at the back so you have straight up access to the wiring. Bridge one side over to the other, and everything is hot.

On the plus side - a column shift manual gearbox, no PAS, a temporarily disconnected choke (you have to open the bonnet to set it...) and knowing what to do with the ride height control do make up a little for that. Even Burton police could make it out from behind a desk and to the house by the time a thief has gotten the thing started and ready to drive away

 

[jpaul]

A Farady box doesn't help with the Fiesta's, the alarm has a blind spot that allows access to the OBD port without going off and a new key is coded via the OBD port.

ie not at all ?
I thought there was a distinction between cars using wireless entry without pressing anything on fob (open to relay attack) and cars where you have to push a button ..
so sounds like OBD port.

If ops car was in the drive whilst his wife was away .. had they had time to previously look at the car too.

(I thought ultrawideband keyless was now attenutating JLR thefts, too ?)

 

[bloodiedathame]

Another reason why EVs are great, they can't go far and there are no bits that can be sold on easily.

Sorry that has happened to you though OP, insurance will deal with it. Police will be useless as always.

 

[Jonnycoupe]

ie not at all ?
I thought there was a distinction between cars using wireless entry without pressing anything on fob (open to relay attack) and cars where you have to push a button ..
so sounds like OBD port.

If ops car was in the drive whilst his wife was away .. had they had time to previously look at the car too.

(I thought ultrawideband keyless was now attenutating JLR thefts, too ?)

You don’t need to relay a key when you can use the OBD2 port to code a fresh key on the car.

JLR BCM updates now lock the car to only 2 keys. Software and BCM changes back to 2018 cars to help. If they want the car they just smash the house door in though…

Nasher will know more of course if we need more detail.