joe@dual.UUCP (Joe Weinstein) (12/24/85)
Merry Christmas! I would like some systematic thought on preventing fairly well prepaired thieves from taking a car. I know that a very desirable car will be taken if they REALLY want that car, but a consideration of the common tactics could save your car from an expert that wasn't prepared for special precautions. The areas I'm considering are: Make the alarm hard to disarm. Make the car hard to get into. Make the ignition hard to activate. Make the car physically hard to move. Concealing the measures taken above. Making the car visibly less attractive to steal, though no less desirable to a legal owner. 1 - Make the alarm hard to disarm. A friend had her *alarm* stolen from her car. No one paid attention to the noise for the thirty seconds it took to cut the black box out from the glove compartment. The alarm must have no delay, it must be under a locked hood unreachable from below, and it must have it's own power supply. Some thieves short the battery from below at the starter motor. 2 - Make the car hard to get into. Is there a law against fitting additional locks in doors? Like a deadbolt? 3 - Make the ignition hard to activate. I'm open to suggestions here. Something easy to operate yet hard to circumvent. 4 - Make the car physically hard to move. This is an interesting area. I would probably buy one of those double hook devices that latch onto a steering wheel spoke and to the brake or clutch pedal. It would take oxy-acetylene to remove it. With the steering at full lock it would take a tow truck to move it. Some tow trucks have that small set of extra wheels to place under unmoving rear wheels in cases where they can't get in to disengage the transmission. What would be a good way to make a car untowable by normal means? 5 - Making the car visibly less attractive to steal, though no less desirable to a legal owner. Here also I am open to suggestions, though I know you can get the car serial number etched into all the windows of the car, which makes it much less valuable to chop shops, which depend on the unmarkedness of whole door assemblies etc. The window would have to be replaced. If I get any interesting responses I'll summarize.
mzal@pegasus.UUCP (Mike Zaleski) (12/27/85)
> From: joe@dual.UUCP (Joe Weinstein) > I would probably buy one of those double hook devices that > latch onto a steering wheel spoke and to the brake or clutch > pedal. It would take oxy-acetylene to remove it. Don't bother. Thieves just cut the steering wheel and slide the hook off. -- "The Model Citizen" Mike^Z Zaleski@Rutgers [ allegra, ihnp4 ] pegasus!mzal