Anti-Stolen: Tips and tricks for keeping your car safe

[boon]

Updated 07/04/11!

Without giving up ALL the secrets, which would basically create a scum-bag how-to, here's some tricks I've learnt that will help to slow down potential car thieves. If you combine a few of them, you should be able to keep your car safe from most things short of a determined bunch of guys with a flatbed truck.

Before anyone starts about giving thieves ideas - 99% of them already know the techniques I'll discuss countering, they're pretty basic - if you know them too then at least you can better defend yourself from them.

I will add to this over time...

Nothing will absolutely STOP a car thief, as everything here can be worked around given time. The key is to make it such a pain in the arse for them, with so many sirens and flashing lights, that they give up, or preferably don't mess with it in the first place.

1. Protect your bonnet!

Most thieves these days don't go for your window or door first, they go for the bonnet. That's where they'll find what they need to disable a poor alarm install - the battery and the sirens.

If they can get your bonnet open without an alarm going off, that's half the battle gone their way already.

-They usually go through the grill. Either poking around with pliers or they'll just smash the grill with a hammer to get at your bonnet release cable. There's not a huge amount you can do to stop this - some people relocate the cable, or run it through a piece of thin rigid pipe to prevent it being messed with.

-Your bonnet sensor is probably in a dumb place. If your alarm doesn't have a bonnet sensor, add one. At the very least they can usually be tacked onto the door sense circuit. If it has one, it's probably on the radiator support, or maybe above a headlight. This is a silly place - they know you'll probably have one and can smash your grill (or use a variety of other dirty tricks) and get at the switch to prevent it going off. Mount it to the firewall or right up the back of the engine bay. If you've already got one, don't move it - buy another one, they're cheap as, and wire it in parallel. This has the added bonus that if they find one, they'll probably go right ahead and open your bonnet, resulting in a whole lot of screaming sirens. You could even get super creative and stick it on top of your intake manifold.

-Test and tune the bonnet sensor. Do you know that your bonnet sensor is actually working? They can get dirty contacts etc over time. Next, does it go off if the bonnet is just popped, or only if it opens? Most of them have a plastic pin, you can trim it down until it goes off if your bonnet lifts even a tiny little bit. You want it to trigger as soon as they pull the release cable.

-Make it hard to open your bonnet. Realistically, we don't open our bonnets that often. Get a cheap bicycle chain lock and find a way to attach it to your bonnet and something solid in the engine bay, like around the intake manifold. Shorten it so that you can juuust get in there to remove it (remember to take it out when you send your car to get serviced...)

The idea here is that the scum can't get your bonnet all the way open to get at your battery and sirens. Some brave thieves will persist if they can get your bonnet open and deal to the siren really quickly, either by silencing the siren through their nefarious ways which I won't go into or cutting your battery wires and hoping it's not battery backup. If they have a bonnet that will only open 10cm and the car is screaming and flashing enough to wake the dead they'll probably put it in the too-hard basket and run off. I don't care about dirtbags knowing this trick - not many of them carry boltcutters and even if they do this should buy you enough siren-seconds to get out of bed, call the police and grab an old 5-iron or 4x2.

2. Know your alarm.

Don't trust that the guy who put it in had a damn clue what he was doing. My V7 didn't have the driver's door hooked up when I bought it, load of good that is.

If you're getting one installed, ask if you can watch them do it. The longer it takes to install, particularly hiding the brain away, the longer it will take to steal. If you can get your brain out without removing any screws, massive fail. Wrap the loom around the dash bar a couple of times - that way if they somehow find the loom (it should be taped into all your other looms) and give it a pull the brain won't fall down into the footwell. Zip tie it to 2000 things up in there. Wrap the whole brain in like 100m of tape and zip-ties. A lot of them take about 3 seconds to open with a flathead screwdriver, and if that happens it's game over (mind you if they get to the brain you're probably screwed anyway).

Take the time to find your brain and see if you can follow the immobilisers (if it's a 5 star it should be a black-wire loom)... if they've cut the wire in 1 place then attached the immobiliser wires on either side of it then they don't know what they're doing. This actually makes it EASIER to hotwire your car.

Don't bother cutting the starter. A lot of people do but what's the point? They'll just push start it 50m down the road after rolling it down your drive. Use the cut for something else. Get creative.

Same goes for the siren. People make them accessible so they can get to the key cut-off (retarded thing anyway) but really it just means that the scum can rip it out in seconds and throw it in a bush or other nefarious siren defeating tricks. Put it somewhere horrible. Underneath the topmount is a good place on Subeys.

If you can have an auxilliary siren, put it (or even better, a couple) under your dash. That way when the scumbag sticks their head under there it's blaring in their face.

Swap the LED for a generic red one. A lot of alarms have quite distinctive LED module thingies but damn, that just tells the bad guys what kind of brain you have. Why tip them off? Having an LED is good though, it will put off opportunists and crackheads.

Don't bother with glassbreak sensors on a Subey... any crim worth 10c won't smash the window, they'll snap off your monsoons then pull the glass out at the top. Get ultrasonics instead. And if your alarm has a shock sensor, turn it all the way down. You want your neighbours to pay attention if your alarm goes off, not ignore it because it's probably falsing AGAIN. I personally can't see the point in shock sensors, most of them won't go off if you break a window anyway.

If you reckon you'll never, ever need a key disconnect your door locks so they can't be screwdrivered. Some people I know glue a 50c coin over them too, just to stop them even trying.

To be continued...

[ODB]

mmmmmm 5 iron

[CUDDAS]

I find the 270 has better range than a 5 iron & does a bit more damage to, & atleast then that will get the neibours out of bed over your annoying alarm.

[LAZLO]

what about heaps of kill switches

[zarnah]

 CUDDAS said:

I find the 270 has better range than a 5 iron & does a bit more damage to, & atleast then that will get the neibours out of bed over your annoying alarm.

I got a remington 7mm magnum, better range again, take that fucker out from 3km down the road.......

[gazzy2000]

i have very well hidden kill switches in my cars in the fuel pump circuit, is that a good deterrent ya reckon?

also got the usual alarm with immobilizer etc

[Guest Freak Boy]

at the end of the day if they really want your car they gonna get it, alarms are only good if they can be heard (ie they havent cut the siren wires) and cut out switches wont do much if they cut the brake lines and wheel it on to a trailer...end of the day enjoy your car while you have it make sure the insurance is upto date and you can always buy a better version/model with the insurance payout ;D

[LAZLO]

ill shoot the k**t that takes my car,i know alot of the car thieves around south auckland,if someones car gets stolen ill ask them and if it wasnt them ill get them to sniff around

[Ninja8)]

 LAZLO said:

ill shoot the k**t that takes my car,i know alot of the car thieves around south auckland,if someones car gets stolen ill ask them and if it wasnt them ill get them to sniff around

haha any cheap parts??!! 8)

Nothing can stop a tow truck from stealing a car and your neighbours and witnesses will probably think its just another car getting towed. NEVER park at ST Lukes (auckland) for too long. ALOT of cars get broken into/stolen there for some reason.

[zarnah]

 Ninja 8)']

[quote name='LAZLO said:

ill shoot the k**t that takes my car,i know alot of the car thieves around south auckland,if someones car gets stolen ill ask them and if it wasnt them ill get them to sniff around

/quote]

haha any cheap parts??!! 8)

Nothing can stop a tow truck from stealing a car and your neighbours and witnesses will probably think its just another car getting towed. NEVER park at ST Lukes (auckland) for too long. ALOT of cars get broken into/stolen there for some reason.

except a tractor and failing that a rifle

[Shale]

 Ninja 8)']

[quote name='LAZLO said:

ill shoot the k**t that takes my car,i know alot of the car thieves around south auckland,if someones car gets stolen ill ask them and if it wasnt them ill get them to sniff around

/quote]

haha any cheap parts??!! 8)

Nothing can stop a tow truck from stealing a car and your neighbours and witnesses will probably think its just another car getting towed. NEVER park at ST Lukes (auckland) for too long. ALOT of cars get broken into/stolen there for some reason.

Never had an issue with the Impreza at St Lukes, but Silvia park puts the sh*ts up me :-\

[LAZLO]

i just cant stand car thieves,the cops should tie them up and let us practice our karate kicks on them for about 5 mins lol

[Ninja8)]

 LAZLO said:

i just cant stand car thieves,the cops should tie them up and let us practice our karate kicks on them for about 5 mins lol

+1 to that!!! but the cops here in NZ are pretty f*ing useless... if you EVER EVER need to ring the cops and need them to come to you or whatever urgently..Say the suspects were holding what i think could be a gun and they will be there in the blink of an eye. instead of taking their time with "coms..i have just received a callout to blah blah blah OVER!!!

Anyone here on CS a cop?

[Shale]

Yup. We have cops on this forum.

Have had several issues with my car in relation to low-life scum...response has been supportive at best, given how many cars get stolen. Bit disappointing...by LUCK I still have the damn thing. But when there are people setting each other on fire, kidnapping each other and attacking each other with broken bottles on a regular basis, it's understandable where the limited resources they have get diverted to.

[ODB]

vigilante justice=the future!

[zarnah]

 ODB said:

vigilante justice=the future!

word

[Divine]

Insurance.

[zarnah]

winchester

[LAZLO]

i got nothing against cops cos i know there just doing their job but some of them are real a**holes,a cop asked me for a fight on the street one night at my little sisters 21st afew years back,they were called to come do their job and tjis one dick asks me for a fight,another cop heard him and told him to go sit in the car,idiot cop that guy

[katie]

 Shale']

[quote name='LAZLO said:

ill shoot the k**t that takes my car,i know alot of the car thieves around south auckland,if someones car gets stolen ill ask them and if it wasnt them ill get them to sniff around

/quote]

haha any cheap parts??!! 8)

Nothing can stop a tow truck from stealing a car and your neighbours and witnesses will probably think its just another car getting towed. NEVER park at ST Lukes (auckland) for too long. ALOT of cars get broken into/stolen there for some reason.

Never had an issue with the Impreza at St Lukes, but Silvia park puts the sh*ts up me :-\

Yep same here. Some dumb ass drove into my caldina at sylvia park, left a big black paint scratch on the bumper. The stupid thing was they were still parked next to me when i came back to my car quite obviously not the kinda people who would have insurance so i had to let it slide.

[ODB]

haha you extremely nice person.

So feckwit parked that close to the Forester that they were touching the bumper.....for no reason other than to be an asshole.

I let it slide and drove home. Upon getting out i saw a bubble in the paint in the rear bumper as a result of this feckwit and drove back in the truck.

I parked the truck as close as the forester was. I had to get my position back didnt i?????

I just forgot the truck had a tow bar...........................

Oops!

[chrisjunkie]

 ODB said:

I just forgot the truck had a tow bar...........................

Oops!

Serves the C**ts right!!! Good Sh!t ;D

[dubbedup]

 chrisjunkie']

[quote name='ODB said:

I just forgot the truck had a tow bar...........................

Oops!

/quote]

Serves the C**ts right!!! Good Sh!t ;D

+1

[Guest]

i find leaving my hyper active blue/red heeler in the car is a pretty good alarm. she has a lot of teeth and likes to show em off.....

[Guest]

most thieves know how to power up systems - ie starters, ign and fuel pumps

I have found that playing with the earth circuits is a much better way immobilise them

ie put your fuel pump isolating switch in the earth circuit, and same for the ignition module

Theives are smart but not electicral genius's