Anti theft Tips

[Chuckles1000]

Ok since my past experience of getting my stereo stolen and i know i didnt make it very hard to steal besides alarm if u popped my trunk everything was there for the taking and wasnt too hard for them so heres my question

what tips do u have to make it harder for thieves to remove your stereo from your car?

[VanishingImage]

well I fortunatly haven't had my stereo system stolen because I keep my car garage and I live on a hill where the driveway comes up behind the house with a motion active light.....Anyways,just make sure you bolt everything down,then possibly cover the bolts so it looks like everything is smooth looking and that everything is tied into each other.Keep the trunk relay from inside your car turned off(the on/off switch is under your trunk lid,if you have this option) and take your faceplate off everytime and take it with you and keep the volume down everytime you pull into a parking lot in places your uncomfortable about having your car parked.Basically take more time in the things you do b4 you get out of your car,double check to make sure you locked your doors.Keep car off the street if possible,this has helped me,i know it has cuz everyone that lives around me that I know that had something had it stolen because they left their car on the street.

[matts]

he made several good points.

turn it down when you get into crowded areas. even if a thief don't get your system then, they have a chance of remembering your car for later. or even getting your plate number and coming to your house.

don't advertise what you have in your car. i.e. no "kenwood" stickers or anything of the such. if anything put a sticker advertising you have an alarm.

if possible use bolts instead screws and make the nuts hard to get to. like if you have the amp mounted to the speaker box go ahead and drill all the way through and put the nut on the inside of the box and use tamper resistant screws to put the sub in.

it's hard to do in cars because of the gas tanks, but bolt the actual box to the car. i've got my sub box bolted to my truck and the sub is in with tamper "proof" torx bit screws. you can buy the bit for them, but not everyone carries one with them.

if you have visible screw heads showing and if possible grind the head off. you just screw the screw in and grind the head down smooth. when you need to get the screw out you have to drill it out.

make sure you lock your doors and/or set your alarm when you get out. it's kind of a given, but a good habit to keep. it also wouldn't hurt to disable the trunk button.

invest money in a good alarm, not some walmart blue light cheapy. why spend 3000 on a system, but only 100 on an alarm?? when shopping for an alarm look for things like a battery backup, that way incase a thief cuts your battery wire the alarm will still work.

dont park your car in dark, remote places.

taking the faceplate with you is a good idea too for a little bit of a piece of mind.

and the list could go on, but there's a few pointers i follow myself.

[illsmokeyou]

a good alarm as matts suggested with a battery back up ..... or one of your own

perfect example:

in 2000 I had my saturn broken into, and of course it was a "decent" alarm system with a shock sensor, and of course the first thing in mind for the theif was to cut the primary ground and power wires to my underhood battery. But because I didnt have me seats folded down, there was no way for him to tell that I had a secondary battery in the trunk, and that was what my alarm was wire to ;) , but he would have never guessed because he was going after my pricey headunit in the cabin. I think it just kinda pissed him off, because I didnt find a thin missing, just the main battery cut, and 4 windows busted out

looking back, I think the giant "Kicker" banner across the front winshield was probably not the best idea

[matts]

yeah, i've got a "kenwood" sticker on my back glass, but 1.) you can't see in the truck good enough to tell what it is and 2.) i've got a great alarm system called "ruger" :P and i'm looking for to upgrade to "glock" :D

[Pte Socks]

I wish I had the cash to upgrade my alarm, its just a basic one more or less that I would like to upgrade

[Jibo]

Awesome tips so far from all :thumbup:

Personally, here is what I will be doing in the near future, disabling the fold down seats, just by screwing them down from inside the trunk....no use for fold down seats with all the equipment in the trunk anyway...

Also disabling the remote trunk release as suggested

And I am planning on creating somewhat of an amp rack in the trunk, making it impossible to take the stuff out without alot of work. :)

and finally, and alarm will be installed soon.

[TheGranDS]

Does anyone know what to look for in an alarm. I know I should look for a secondary battery, but what else?

[matts]

well, you can get rediculous with car alarm features. some have window breakage sensors, proximity, tilt sensor, hood pop sensor, and quite a few others. almost all alarms have a shock sensor, basically the more sensors the better reallly. a vast majority of alarms will have just a shock sensor, then some have a proximity to boot. clifford is slap happy when it comes to sensors on their alarms :lol:. i had the avantguard5, which is practically the same alarm car audio dave has on his car. but the more features an alarm has the more expensive it is....of course. then you've got antenna range, which is how far away you can stand and your remote still work. and you've got remote start, nice feature really, once you get it you kind of dont want to go back :P. the battery backup is a nice feature too, although a bunch of alarms don't have them.

[TheGranDS]

Thanks so much for the info ...it really will help me when I go to get an alarm next week...thanks again..

[mwatson69_2k]

yeah I have had the experience of having my old car broken into.... Shattered passengers window and took my radar detector, My $400 Pioneer deck and they even used my own pocket knife which I had in there to pry the deck out of my car.... When I came out of the mall I wasnt the only one with the same problem.. About 5 other cars were broken into... But the thing is.....I left the face on the deck and I left the radar detector sitting on the dash in plain sight... I didnt think anything of it because I had been to that mall hundreds of times and nothing has ever happened... Lets just say that it was about a $600 mistake that wont happen again... My only suggestion besides the ones that have already been spoken for is to just make sure that everything electrical and worth value is not in sight.. JUST MAKE SURE NOTHING IS IN SIGHT!! When they look in the window and dont see anything then they wont waste time breaking into a car....

[matts]

yep. that's like the other night me and emily went to a party. people had their systems blaring and stuff. now i could have went out there, cranked up her system, blown a BIG majority (if not all) of them away, but didn't. why would i want to go out there and basically tell everyone "hey, look what i've got. steal me steal me" :lol:. and i met a friend there and he hasn't seen her car in a while and i was dying to show him all the stuff that's been done to it since last time he saw it, but i waited till things died down a little.

but even after things died down and there wasn't anyone around the car when we got in it, and didn't even turn it up, people started gathering around gawking. we were still sitting in the car and i made it appoint to have the gun in plain sight and tell him about the alarm in a moderatly loud voice. i wasn't showing off, or trying to provoke anyone into making them think that i thought i was a billy bad as$ because i had a gun. i just wanted to give any of the would-be thieves something to think about.

i know if i were thinking about stealing someones stuff and i knew for a fact they carried a gun i'd think twice, if not three times, about doing it.

[UGAkilla]

I wonder what would happen if you capped someone stealing your stuff out of your car. Would the police arrest you for assault with a dealy weapon? Something to think about.

[matts]

yeah, probably......if you told them "hey, he was stealing my sh-t, so i shot him" but if you came up with some kind of BS story about self defense you'd come closer to getting by with it. i know a guy that teaches the class to get your concealed license, and he says if there's only one story to believe who you think they're gonna believe? lol

[matts]

and i doubt i shoot anyone over stealing my stuff. i'd come closer to beating the living piss out of them, just depends on how the mood struck me :D

[01GrandAmSE]

i was j/w why is it agood idea to turn off the trunk relay switch? so if someone breaks into your car they can't pop the trunk from the drivers seat?

[matts]

you hit the nail on the head :). that way you have to have a key to open it....or your alarm remote

[RocketFast321]

i always have my remote trunk thing turned off, and my folding seats are close. I use these tips on my cousins vic. He have a big a$$ box in the truck so it takes two people to get it out. I use 4 " screws and put his amp on the back of the box. and his remote trunk release is turned off

[vdgmcool]

I haven't had anyone try to break into my car mainly because I have some dark tint on my car.(I figure if they can't see it they won't want it) Another thing I have is a BlackWidow Alarm it cost me about $300 and this thing is very sensitive(loud sounds set it off, if my car is touched it gives warning chirps,and it has the other basic alarm features) but just follow the rules listed above and you should be fine

[93GT]

Well just get a tape deck;) lol we got one and no one seems to want it.....although cd changer in the trunk not many know about:D but then again tape decks dont got the pretty graphics as the new cd players...tuff call

[RocketFast321]

I been thinking about that my self. Getting a keh-5600 tape deck and a cdx changer

[Kao]

One note about the remote trunk release --

If a thief wants to steal something, that's not going to stop them. I had mine disabled, from now on I'm leaving it enabled. Going to buy a nice anti-theft system and custom wire it on top of the professional install to insure nobody knows exactly how it's done.

Why I say the release won't stop them -- if you take a sledge or something and smack the lock hard once it's going to pop it right out. Happened to me in Florida, fuggers popped the lock out then it's cake to stick a screwdriver in and release the trunk lid.

Basically the only way to completely stop theft is to not have anything to steal. And even then (as i've found out) drunk bastards will sometimes go smash in a row of cars' windows and steal anything inside without prejudice.

I've had my equip stolen 5 times. 3 of them i had an open window and was no furthur than 20 feet away, just was asleep. talk about pissing you off.....

I don't think I'd think twice about capping someone if i saw them screwing with my car. Which is why I don't own a gun ;)

Hehe. As far as alarms go too -- a girl at church bought a car with a $400 alarm on it and she lost the remote -- for some reason the alarm went off at church (had the starter disable, etc etc etc features)...... it was the first time I've touched a car with an alarm and in the iowa winter (it was below 0`F out and very windy) it took me less than 5 minutes to trace the wiring around and find a way to bypass the alarm then kill the power to it. She hasn't had a problem with it since (and no, she didn't want the alarm, the car just came with it)

If it took me less than 5 minutes and I had never touched one before, think of what a professional could take care of it in. No time at all.

Granted I had lots of people's attention but my point is that alarms are pretty chump unless you do some custom wiring.....

Just get full coverage insurance with low deductibles. everyone hates having their stuff stolen (God trust me I know) but at least that way you get some of it back.

[VanishingImage]

well yea if someone is willing or going to steal something they will TRY but the more steps you take the less someone will take their time to try to steal.....If you disable your trunk release and they break into your car and try and use it and see the trunk isn't gonna open i garuntee they won't take the time to try and pry it open,and most of time they won't be carrying a sledge hammer,more or less a flathead screw driver,knife,or something small to hide in poket or something.If they break the window that says they are just trying to get something out of the inside of the car and not going to waste their precious time to try and pry the tunk open.

But from coming from someone that has never gotten their car broken into and garages their car(me) then its safe to say my car is and has a sheltered life.But as far as someone who has had their car broken into multiple times then i side for you because its like why bother having stuff in the car if its gonna provoke someone to try and steal it.

[matts]

well they might take time to break into the trunk if they KNOW you have something to steal. most thieves aren't going to go through that much trouble on a whim........trust me on that one. when you break into a car you want to get what you can and get out ASAP, unless you did your homework on the car and you know its going to be sitting at "X" location for "X" amount of time.

there's far easier ways to disable an alarm. give me about 1 min and i can have it quiet if i'm a thief. you were trying to not mess up the car. if i break in i dont care what gets messed up or broken........it's not mine.

i've had my stuff jacked before too, sucks dont it. live and learn i guess. but vanishing's right, the harder it is to steal the less likely it's gonna get messed with. although you were right kao, if they want it bad enough there's not a whole lot that's gonna stop them