Good idea, wire-swap would be well-hidden, but only works for distributor-equipped vehicles.
1 Like
Get an Apple Air Tag and put in an inconspicuous spot in the car. If the car is stolen it can be found quickly if the police are willing to find it.
Our Chevy Cobalt was stolen from my daughter’s rental house garage while a senior at college. They were all at the football game. The thieves broke in, stole all the electronics, and then found her keys. They put everything in the car, backed out of the garage, and drove off. We had an OnStar subscription and called them as soon as she called us. Within 45 minutes GM contacted the police, told them where it was, and they impounded the car. I imagine you could call the police with the Air Tag location and they would take it from there. There are other devices like the Air Tag. It costs $24.00 on line.
1 Like
Own one.
I’ve thought of using a thin clear plastic insulator between necessary connections, a collar that breaks contact but is inconspicuous. A broken electrical cable could work too. I’m talking about cheap cars that a serious thief wouldn’t go after, just kids and reckless people, without the time and parts that @eddo had when he was a kid using his father’s car.
1 Like
The best device is one that is highly visible and makes the car next to yours a more desirable target.
When everyone was saying how easy it was to defeat the Club, I had one on my Cadillac Eldorado that was routinely parked behind work where cars often got broken into and stolen. But they never messed with mine because the other cars were easier to steal. One was right next to mine.
One of the other engineers came up with some fancy hidden circuit. They got frustrated and trashed the car out of spite.
2 Likes
That happened to my bicycle twice.
One of David Letterman’s Top 10 lists was what’s good about a Yugo. One of them was, ‘At least nobody will steal it.’
One of our ambassadors to Yugoslavia won their hearts by driving a Yugo.
2 Likes
I think it’s not productive to give advice on how to make it harder to steal a car, or how to convince a thief to steal the car parked next door. They could just get a tow truck and tow it away. Who benefits from me helping car B get stolen instead of car A?
So I’m not helping with passive devices to prevent theft.
You could get a cellular trail camera. Some connect to 12 Volt power in addition to batteries. You should get one that has GPS. It can be mounted below to watch the catalytic converter if needed. You can then know the location of your vehicle.
Another idea is to mount a police siren to the vehicle. Have it activate about 30 seconds after the vehicle is shifted in to Drive. It will also make the car shut down. It would be deactivated with a kill switch that you have to remember to arm and disarm. Thieves hate noise.
My focus is more on helping find out who steals your vehicle, not preventing it from happening.
Lojack is still in business. GPS tracker on your car.
Airtags seem to work. I have read a few news stories where they helped find stolen cars.
Both active devices. Would do nothing to prevent cat convertor thefts.
Problem with Lojack it’s no in every state and hard to track if car is stolen from a state that has lojack and driven to a state that doesn’t.
1 Like
For a whole lot less money, I can simply use the vehicle mfr’s app on my cellphone to see where the vehicle is parked. Obviously, that doesn’t help when the thief is on the move, but once he parks it, my phone app provides the address where the vehicle is parked.
The smartphone app works in every state!
Those cars that allow a phone app to unlock and start your car… are more easily stolen! Reprogram the “key” to one in your hand and the car opens and starts. The same app can remove your key and phone from the list that your car commmunicates with so tracking is lost.
As crude as keys with security “pills” in them are, they did work to keep the dumber thieves away.
But NOT on every car.