@Nevada_545 .
The way it worked was this. The shop that was going to do the immobilizer/key programming suggested to the owner that to save a little money the owner should find someone to replace the column and ignition. Then tow it to them and they would have their guy put in the new lock cylinder and do the programming.
I even went to the shop and asked what items they needed me to replace.
I was pretty much working under their direction.
For most of my life I have taken pride in driving cars that nobody would want to steal. At least that is what I thought until I read some of the posts here. I also did not have full coverage, so always had a club, rarely locked it but at least used it as a decor and pretended to mess with it before getting out of the car. And I have had to park in quite shady areas at times.
Now, I am able to drive better cars and also able to have full coverage, so no club.
My dad had an Opel Record stolen once, they took it for a joy ride, they brought it back the next day and they had taped a quarter on the hood.
I haven’t but my sister did. It was a '93 Mazda Miata. The funny thing was that when it was recovered a few days later…the thief had washed and waxed the car and had put a brand new set of tires on it. She still has the little red car some 20 years later. The thief was tracked down by the credit card number used to buy the tires. What a dummy.
As a social experiment, a major magazine in the 70s parked identical cars in a Bronx neighborhood and in a similar (income level) Los Angeles neighborhood…
After 2 weeks, the Bronx car was completely stripped, but the L. A. only had the wheel cover and wiper blades stolen.
Not sure what the implication was, but insurance rates would reflect the probability of having your car stolen. I’m told every Corvette in NYC has been stolen at least once.
Someone broke into my garage, disconnected the garage door opener, opened the door, then pushed my car out of the garage. While pushing it he had the driver’s door open some, and it caught on the thick bushes outside, and it was forced open so far it wrenched it and it was jammed open. So the bozo let it roll into the street and ran away. Car in the middle of the street, door wide open. The thief left a surf fishing pole in the car. Cops came, found hand prints on the windows and door, and two days later came back and told me it was my son who did it. My son had his own car, it was parked in front of the house, and he was home sleeping when this happened. And he doesn’t go surf fishing. They refused to tell me whose hand prints they found, but they never took mine or my son’s.
Anyway, they closed the case and said it was a domestic dispute. The crime statistics for my quiet residential neighborhood stayed nice and low.
House broken into just once twenty years ago.
Cars broken into but not stolen . . twice.
but . . waaayyyy back in '73, I was playing a school dance job in the basement of the Elks club next door to the Greyhound bus station.
Came out when the dance was over and . . . . No Scout II ! . . Dad’s truck was GONE !
Theft ? I though so .
But , it turns out , the buttheads at greyhound thought it was in their way and asked ONLY the Elks upstairs. . after getting no response ( THEY THOUGHT THE KID’S DANCE WOULD HAVE NO ADULTS TO ASK ! ) . . they had it towed !
A few years ago my '87 Toyota pickup disappeared. The cops were looking at another Toyota pickup parked next to where it had been, the car the thieves stole before mine. A week later the cops called and told me to pick it up at Fred’s Ripoff car-towing Disservice ($300). It had the registrations from 3 other vehicles and 6 full trash bags. It was in okay shape. I’m guessing they spent a week living in it before they found a replacement.
I had hoped that no thief would want such an old car. Now I remove a necessary part a thief is unlikely to carry and isn’t easy to jury-rig. Of course they could pop the hood, diagnose the problem, take a trip to AutoStore (ask in a cartalk forum) - but that seems unlikely.
Now I’d be interested. Minister’s son, judge’s son? In Minnesota the information is private while the investigation is taking place, but it’s public once the case is closed. It’d be fun just to do a Freedom of Information request. Just for the fun of it though.
@Barkydog Yes probably the 60’s or very early 70’s. I guess it was either for gas or “rent”. I just remember it even though I was probably 3-4 yrs old at the time.
May '73. We were in Cambridge “Our Fair City” MA having watched the surrealistic film King of Hearts. When we found our '71 BMW 2002 missing from the parking lot it seemed like part of the movie. When we decided it wasn’t, we visited the nearby precinct and told our story to two bored desk policemen – they said ours was the 1341st stolen car in that area for the year (shortly after we arrived, #1342 walked in). Car theft was a misdemeanor in MA at the time (thieves probably got more for minor speeding in a stolen car than for stealing it), and was so frequent police let recovered cars sit where they were and told the owners to pick them up (usually not in the best neighborhoods, BTW). The good police recovered the Bimmer the next day (they were uncommon enough in '73 to be easy to spot), and the policeman who called us apologized for driving it to the station without our permission (“I’ve always wanted to test one of those cars, and I hope you don’t mind if I drove it in”). It seemed to run better, and I suspect the temporary owners blew out some of the carbon (this was the day when such things were called “Italian tune-ups”). Our BMW Club magazine, BTW, had a story about a stolen BMW that had several thousand dollars in accessories when it was recovered several months later.
We considered burglar alarms, kill switches, anti-theft ignitions, snakes in the car, etc. and then realized none of those would do anything about Boston drivers, Boston roads, Boston winters, and our frequent desire to visit the Boston area because of the tremendous culture it had. We finally had a “genius moment” and the next day started shopping for a BAD (“Boston After Dark”) car, quickly settling on a twelve-shades-of-gray, unknown-year Volvo with great running gear, a solid frame, a trunk that fastened with a bungee cord, a complete indifference to Boston potholes, and a body that even a kleptomaniac would avoid. There’s much – very much – to be said for having a car you don’t worry about, and I can’t say we ever had as much overall enjoyment from any car we have ever owned, including the 2002, a 911, an SL, a GTI, and several others.
Those wing windows on cars of that era were definitely not secure. Some of them didn’t even lock, just a friction fit. You could easily open them with a thin screwdriver or just a stick from the outside. I did sort of like the wing-window styling though. And they provided a nice breeze on a hot day going down the road. And if you accidentally locked your keys inside, no problem at all … lol …
A person who I work with bought two Honda Grom motorcycles, one for himself and one for his wife a year or so ago. Last night someone stole both of them from in front of his apartment.
Another person who I worked with many years ago had his Ducati motorcycle stolen from the parking lot of the apartment complex he lived in. It was recovered about a year later when the cops busted a meth lab out in rural Bastrop county. Unfortunately, it was so trashed that it was written off as a total loss.