What to do: Keep car from gettin stolen.

gt/cs said:
Locks exist to keep honest people out ;)
That's a fun quote, but I don't worry about the honest people.

I'm interested in this too. I know some people put kill switches hidden under the dash.. something like that could at least slow someone down. The downside is it's another thing to go wrong with the car.
 
I drive my car to work and park in the same spot everyday. People know the car and keep an eye out for it. I rarely leave it other places where I can't keep an eye on it.

It stays in a locked and alarmed garage, out of sight, at night.

I had a kill switch on the battery, but problem was, it was such a pain to use, I rarely did, so it wasn't much of a deterrant.

I stand by common sense. Plus, I keep an eye out for all muscle cars--sort of a professional courtesy.

Bottom line, insure it for what you can afford, enjoy it and don't dwell on it. It can happen, and might, but not driving your car for fear of theft is just as bad.

--P
 
I don't drive my car much but when it is in the garage I keep a lock through one of the hood pins, have a hidden electric fuel pump switch, and bring the coil wire inside. Some cars you can use one of the sparkplug wires for the coil but my plug wires are all female and the coil wire is female/male. I usually use the fuel pump switch when I park it somewhere and sometimes leave the lock in the hood if I'm expecting to leave it for more than a few hours somewhere. Since I moved to Sacramento I'm pretty anal about having the garage open since I dont live in the best part of town.
 
Barrel locks on the hood, alarm with ignition kill and clutch pedal lock (like the ones used on the brake pedal). If someone tries to steal it, they either have to tow it or power shift it! Mainly not leave it sitting too long in public where I can't see it as others have posted.
 
I just try not to worry about it getting stolen. It's easier said then done but really if someone wants to steal your car they can. I've got a immobaliser, alarm (all black wiring so it's harder to work out) lock it up in the garage at night, locked up in garage at work. These would hopefully slow down the fools a little but there's no guarantee.
 
Simplistic, but works well in my low crime area:
bumper sticker: "This car protected by a United States Marine, no weapon or alarm needed."

No I don't actually have that on my car, but a friend suggested it. :-) Mind you I'm not a large guy 5'9" 190lbs so it probably wouldn't work well if someone saw me get out of the car.
 
skywalker said:
Simplistic, but works well in my low crime area:
bumper sticker: "This car protected by a United States Marine, no weapon or alarm needed."

No I don't actually have that on my car, but a friend suggested it. :-) Mind you I'm not a large guy 5'9" 190lbs so it probably wouldn't work well if someone saw me get out of the car.

Sky--Maybe if you faked a facial twitch or muttered to yourself when you got out! Still, I haven't met a marine yet who was more than 20 paces from a fire arm at most times in their life!

I have a friend who has a RANGER plate on the front of his truck and no one has ever messed with it.

--P
 
one i thought of but never tried.
isolate the starter solonoid and run a ground from it to your horn button, but that means your horn wont work, but i dont use it anyway so wouldnt matter. that also that means the solonoid could't be jumped just by a single hot wire youd need to supply a ground too.
 
one i thought of but never tried.
isolate the starter solonoid from ground and run a ground from it to your horn button, but that means your horn wont work, but i dont use it anyway so wouldnt matter. that also that means the solonoid could't be jumped just by a single hot wire youd need to supply a ground too.
 
i just had dual kill switches mounted in two places on the 65. Didnt splice into the wires till underneath the dash so if you popped the hood, it looked good to go. Put one on the solenoid ground and one on the ignition coil/starting wire. My $20,000 pristine stang never got taken and I would park it anywhere I went.
 
One thing to remember is that your car is NEVER safe from thieves. A friend of mine bought a very nice '66 convertible several years ago. It all looked legit, that is until the FBI came knocking on the door! The guy he bought it from had stolen a printer from a DMV office in Oregon. Then he went about collecting Mustangs (very, very easy to sell quickly) from various places. The FBI agent who came to get my friends info said the thief had once stolen a Boss 429 from a car show! Think about it, when you go to a show, you most likely park your car, clean it a bit, then head out to check out the other cars. You most likely don't know the guy parked next to you, and he doesn't know you. So if someone watches even a little bit, waits for the owner to leave, then acts like it's his car, chances are he can get in the car (nobody locks their ride at an outdoor show) and since older cars (especially ones built before lockng columns) are easy to hot wire, drive it out of the show with nobody even paying attention. Whatever device you decide on, use it whenever you park it, no matter where, and trust no one.
 
All this car theft talk reminded me of when the cops pulled me over in my Stang (they were following me for a while looking for an excuse, finally seen that my license plate light wasn't working).

Long story short, they told me they had reports about a classic mustang that had been recently stolen. That's just scary, I'm with xj220's idea of getting a GPS bug in the chassis. It'd be fun stealing my Own car back after I find it.