Thieves targeting classic cars in So Cal.

I think it's AllTrac or AllTrack. Tiny GPS you can hid anywhere. Use a laptop to find your car. Originally used to track your kids. If the car goes underground like a parking garage, it will use a cellphone signal.

 

Anyone here have the GPS? It's important enough to me, I seriously am considering it. I don't know what the price tag is though.

 

Not that it would stop a tow truck of flatbed but when I did my truck I installed an ignition switch that was standard for my truck. It is one for a foot starter on the floor. Instead of using the foot starter because my truck is custom I put a pushbutton hidden under the dash on the left side of the steering column that activates the starter. I also put a pushbutton right next to the ignition that looks like it would be for the starter but is actually the horn button. A very loud highway horn.

 

Funny thing, a guy with a lot of money in his truck around here moved his ignition switch into the console and put a push button on the dash that says start on the dash. He has an air cannon used to scare birds under the back seat and a valve tied to a pressure switch and a relay to put 6 gallons and 150 psi to the air horns before shutting off. I don't think anyone is stealing his truck.

 

I have a removable steering wheel in my tudor. I take it with me if the car is out of sight. You get really funny looks walking down the sidewalk with a steering wheel in your hand. Its not much but at least it will slow somebody down unless they have a pair of Vise-Grips I have a battery disconnect but its right on the dash, more of a safety thing versus anti-theft. Another one somewhere in the car might be a good idea though.

 

yeah but it didn't work properly so they pulled it off of the market. i know cause i had one in my '55 chevy. i'd hit the button to turn off the juice and then crank the car over and it would fire right up. it was a great idea just needed the bugs worked out.
Hell, i'm in Hollywood alot and see people park in places they shouldn't, i've seen a car parked in the red parrallel parked TIGHTLY in between 2 cars, saw a tow truck drive up, the guy hops out, through some little package under the center of the car, pressed a button and the cars tires lifted up about an inch or so off the ground. he then walks to the sidewalk side, and PUSHED the car into the street, dropped the car, hopped back into his truck and did the rest of the work from inside of his truck!! took about a minute to do and the car was gone! i always wondered how they towed cars that were parrallel parked till that day!

 

its getting bad out their, i will agree

it dont matter where your at though, even here where im at thier is a car takin nightly if not two,

as far as knowing how long and all the trade secrets to steal a car, i can be gone in less than a minute on foot and in less than 30 seconds with my wrecker, as we do impounds, repo, court seizing and all kinds of other legal job

but i hope the hell they hang those theives

 

Emergency brakes, turned wheels... iv'e seen them pull cars sideways out of a parking spot and tow it away with the rear wheels locked, smoking and screeching down the block... Alarm going off, lights flashing, everything.

 

all-trac and tuff-trac

http://trac-pro.com/_wsn/page10.html

 

kill switch, un-hooked coil wire, big ass chain going from both pedals through the steering wheel with big ass padlocks and me sitting by the window overlooking the car ..........yea i'm paranoid.

 

I got a nextel cell phone with GPS. Signed up for the family plan, and added a second line for a couple bucks a month.

Rigged up a cell phone car charger wired directly into the cars 12 volt, and hid the phone under the dash... Hid it GOOD.

My Girlfriend swears I'm psychic. Check the web site, and see exactly where she is. If she is "up to no good" [drug problem], I call her and ask "Where are you?" It usually scares her straight and she comes home.

 

This one was stolen last Wednesday night in the riverside area, if ya'll didn t see my post, so keep your eyes and ears open

 

here is a place where you can set your car up w/ GPS. You can get a satellite photo of where your car is on your computer, and it will tell tou vehicle speed and all that crap. Just get that and make your car lay frame that way they can't tow it either.

http://www.gpsmobiletech.com/

 

There is not an electrical shutoff gizmo in the world that will prevent someone from pushing the vehicle to a trailer or simply dragging it down the road.

 

So no one has tried LOWJACK? That is what the cops use out here in cailf.

 

Well if the e-brake is on, we drag it anyway. Believe it or not they'll still roll unless the e-brake is pushed down / pulled up really hard. But yeah, I've drug a few down the road with the tires squealing. I actually had a Hyndai pitch a wheel once because I drug it on a flat tire for too long.

As far as the steering column, it depends. We only impound cars now, so we're not nearly as pressed for time. Nowadays we just pick it up from the front & disconnect the tranny. Back in the old days when I was just doing repossessions I would get my foot up there in the wheel and push the bottom of the wheel to the right while pulling the top of the wheel with both hands to the left until the steering lock broke, then straighten the wheel and tie it off with the seat belt.

 

I live in the hood, and I work for the local pd, so I have some experiance in what really happens. If you think the cops are looking for your stolen car...think again. You need to have a pic of the car on a hand out sheet, leave it on a billboard on the station. Take your battery out of the car when you're not in it. Don't park at the end of a row of cars, park in the middle ( tougher for a towtruck to get at you) angle the wheels to make it harder to tow. Get a lojack. Good luck

 

Exactly what I was wondering. Lots of ideas posted which might deter or slow down a theif, but LoJack and GPS are the only ones that will help get it back. Yeah, they're a little pricey, but how much do you have invested in your car? Or better question, could it ever really be replaced?
Also reminds why I insist on keeping a late model daily driver that I don't worry about.

 

Years ago I heard about a group out here in So Cal that targeted Porsches. They had a flatbed truck and an electric forklift. They could pull up, grab a car and be gone in under 2 minutes. Another trick on Porsches was that the battery was in the very front under the head light. A guy would walk up and drill a couple of holes through the bottom of the battery box into the battery. Walk away, wait a couple of hours for the electrolyte to drain out. No battery, no alarm. Years ago my buddy had a Mini Cooper S, the original type. Four strong guys could pick one up and walk away. He used to chain it to a tree at night. We started calling it "the bad dog".

Kurt O.

 

"say hello to my little friend!" had a 36' plymouth stolen and the recovery team consisted of me and my mini 14 complete with 30 round clip. nothing like the look on the face of a thief that has just been caught stareing down the barrel of a rifle and you know the worst thats gonna happen is your gonna beat the fuckers ass with the butt of the rifle! i'll risk the assault charge and enjoy the momement!

 

GPS units usually run on batteries that need to be replaced within a couple days if the battery is cut. I would imagine a person who steals high dollar old cars all the time would disconnect the battery because of alarms or tracking devices like this. If your car sits in a garage it could be a full day or so before you discover it is gone if they close everything back up.

LoJack is the way to go because it runs off its own battery for over a year. It also doesnt require a subscription like all the GPS units I looked at.

I think most car thieves are small time, so a disconnect and in-garage storage are your best bet. These and a Lojack are about the best you can do (within reason)...

Hyfire

 

Jeez, I've bee driving my car alot lately . I'm really not trying to get my car jacke in the IE.

Haha. We turned a teammates car sideways in between two parked cars like this back in HS. It was some lil ass car, that just barely fit after we were done with it. He had to wait a while until the other cars were moved.

 

A few weeks back my buddy parked his Shelby GT350 in his driveway for maybe 5 minutes after a Sunday morning drive only to walk out and find a guy trying to hot-wire it...with his partners in crime waiting in another car 1/2 way down the block. Needless to say my buddy freaked out, tried to catch the little bastard as he took off running but thankfully he didn't otherwise I'm sure he'd be in jail (just the way our legal system work here in Cali). This was in Brentwood on a Sunday morning, not exactly the "hood so it can happen anywhere you live. The worst part of the story is after the police were called and reports were filed...the officer actually told him that "driving a car like this is just unsafe anymore in LA, the classic car theft rings were becoming more violent and classic cars are being sent to Russia and other places in containers on a daily basis". Life in the big city...but worse, why would it take someone more than 30 seconds to hot-wire a Mustang??? The youth of today, how sad.

 

I used to do mobile audio/video.security, etc. There are a few things you can add to any alarm that help dramatically. One of my favorites is a two-step proximity detector. You can set where the 'warn-away' and 'alarm' feild is. I set mine to be roughly at the plane of the windows. No one should be that close to my car when I'm not around it... It's probably the only thing that kept my convertible from being stolen when it was my daily in college.
A good shock sensor or mercury 'tilt' switch also help a great deal.

Ear-splitting piezio sirens hidden inside the car work nicely too. No one can stand to be inside for very long.
Btw, JC Whitney still sells sirens that are 120db

 

Why not just put a boot on the car? They wont be able to take off in it and you wont have to damage the car for no reason.

 

Im really leaning toward the .."kill em" idea..if enough of them were caught and killed their numbers would diminish..and the rest of them might decide to go into another line of work..just not enough risk in it for the thief right now..the benifits out weigh the risk.

 

That's one of my gripes about punishments levied in this country in general. If you really don't want people to do something, make the punishment not worth the risk.

For example; if you really don't want people talking on a cell phone while driving make it a 1000.00 fine. Then suddenly the risk isn't worth it.

 

Horsepower67..dude im with you all the way..if you only knew how much i support that kind of thinking. and i go back to one of my other posts on this thread..the cops admit to knowing these cars are getting shipped over seas but are not doing what it takes to stop it. There in lies the problem, aiding the criminals to continue with their theft.

Hey dont worry about killing them and getting caught, because thats when you will have more rights than a law abiding citizen.

 

It's sad, Yesterday I heard on the news that two punks were breaking into a car and the owner caught them and hit one of them with a golf club, now the owner was arrested for assault. What are we supposed to do let the criminals take our shit then tell the cops about it so they can say "oh well".