Let's talk about stolen cars

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Nothing stolen yet but I have had cars broken into. In southern CA they drive em down to mexico where they get stripped down and sold for parts/scrap.

Last car someone broke into was a '98 integra GS-R I had. They smashed out the driver's side window but failed to notice that the car had no steering wheel. Between that and the hidden fuel pump cutoff switch they didn't get the car but did tear out the head unit and the new speakers I had put in the back. That car was a headache, glad I got rid of it. Way too much attention from thieves/ricers/cops/etc.
 
My brother had his truck stolen a couple of years ago. By chance, about a week later, some police officers spotted it on the other side of town. What was odd about it was they weren't looking for my brothers truck, but were looking for a black Chevy truck with three black fellows that had been involved in a robbery the night before.

Officers pulled them over, questioned them and during questioning, ran the plates which in turn, revealed they were driving a stolen truck.

All my brothers tools that he was carrying on his truck were long gone AND in one weeks time, they had managed to drive the truck a little over 3,000 miles.
 
Originally Posted By: Chris142
There's a Honda a day stolen here.your missing car is just another one the cops are supposed to be watching for. Here they strip them then dump the carcus in the desert


I lived in California back in the late 80's, (Lancaster area). When I first moved there, I was amazed at the number of abandoned cars out in the desert. Stupid me thought people simply abandoned them when they wore out and since it was the desert, they didn't rust. It wasn't until I had been there a few months that I was informed they were stolen cars that had been stolen and stripped. Thankfully, I didn't act on my urge to scavenge parts as I might have ended up meeting Charles Manson and friends. Yet another example of how God protects the naïve.
 
Newark PD let this one sit for more than two days before they came and took it. Right across the street from where whoever lifted mine.

Look at that axle.

b6646bd8e7f4b68addb7d7facafe12dc.jpg
 
The NPD put it in the system. Most, if not all agencies have a RATT (Regional auto theft task force) who sole job is to drive around scanning tags waiting to get a hit on one. Honestly, you probably won't see it again. But your insurance will pay for another car or give you money for one. It sucks and I can't imagine having my car stolen but it's life.
 
Originally Posted By: Chris142
I can't imagine a theif taking the car to iffy lube! Seriously nobody cares about oil like we do


/\/\/\. That cracked me up, too. "I am going to my sister's house for Tday.......It is 400 miles up, 400 back.......I better get the oil in this stolen car changed, before I go! Or else the "Service engine soon" light might come on.
 
I had a car stolen once. it was recovered about a week later, Minus the $600 Headunit and all my CD's.

1987 Olds 98. had been my grandpa's car. I had Taken 2 of My friends (and the one's Little Sis) down to Columbus(AMC Lennox 24 just across the Highway&River from OSU), to see Star Wars Episode 1(original run) on the BIG screen, with a Modern audio system (local theater we had back then really Sucked.)

we were about an hour ahead of our showtime, so we walked to the Old Navy store around the Corner, did a little shopping, and when we went back to put the stuff in the car, no car.
(it's normally a pretty safe area, but they had had a string of car thefts that month, including another that same night)

Here we are 2 hrs from home, No car, When we Find out that Little sis still has school tomorrow.. So i have to use the payphone to call my parents, who get there around midnight. that was the most awkward, and uncomfortably silent 2 hr Car ride home EVER.

They had popped the lock cylinders with a flat screwdriver, and Busted the Column to start it with said same screwdriver. busted the Lower Dash panel to steal the Stereo. when i got to the body shop, they said the lower dash they were able to find was one of the last 9 available in the US for that Car.

stole the stereo and all the Cd's but Not the faceplate that was in the pocket on the front of the driver's seat...
 
Originally Posted By: 4wheeldog
Originally Posted By: Chris142
I can't imagine a theif taking the car to iffy lube! Seriously nobody cares about oil like we do


/\/\/\. That cracked me up, too. "I am going to my sister's house for Tday.......It is 400 miles up, 400 back.......I better get the oil in this stolen car changed, before I go! Or else the "Service engine soon" light might come on.


In my younger days, I knew people that would use a stolen car, as-is, for weeks. Weeks. As their own personal vehicle. Friends, family.. all could get in. I could name the city (just outside Newark) but.. why.

Can't help but wonder if whoever has it will simply leave it somewhere it can be found (park it at a bus stop running late one night and walk out of it, and disappear) and that I will get a call that they found it. Maybe even in tact.

I also see them recovered... destroyed and crashed, out of spite.
 
Friend of mine had his wife's Olds stolen and it ended up in the north end of Hartford; thief used it to play bumper cars. Tow company came out and dragged it back to the yard. When insurance came to look @ the car @ the yard, the yard guys had removed the engine and alloy rims and installed donut spares and insisted it was picked up on the street like that. Yup, thieves install donut spares when they take rims.... Glad there is always someone to kick you when you are down.
 
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Originally Posted By: MalfunctionProne
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. Two days ago, my car was stolen from right in front of my apartment building overnight in this dump of a city. I have never had a car stolen before in my life. It is now reported stolen, and I wonder if I will ever see my car again.

I doubt they are even looking for it. Has anyone else ever had a vehicle stolen? Should I call the County and State police as well, not just Newark? Any chance the car will be recovered?


You certainly do live in a rough area. There are a series of questions ask and they are for a reason. Big one is are you behind on payments? Possible repo? Another huge one is was it stolen with keys or without? In NY there is also an unauthorized use charge instead of file 1 (stolen car) for those way to often times a "buddy" (usually a drug addict, is "loaned" a car for an errand and simply doesn't return.

A large number of cars (at least in my area) are stolen for parts (Camry, Accord, Civic, etc...) especially airbags. We don't see that a lot though, usually its broken into for GPS, IPODS, etc... or stolen and dumped the next day.

The comment about the cops won't do much is beyond absurd. As mentioned, there are units out there that run through the malls and large parking areas specifically looking for stolen vehicles. Another thing that happens is the data is uploaded to a LPR (license plate reader) and it will "hit" without the cop doing anything but driving by and the machine reads the license plate.
 
Originally Posted By: Spazdog
Cops here do not go out of their way on stolen vehicles.

I could see my motorcycle being stolen. Got to the phone and gave the 911 operator detailed directions about which direction the thief was headed.

It took the police department 4 hours to respond. It was at that time that the report with the plate number went out.

It was recovered when the thief crashed it. Hurt himself good and proper. Blood all over the right side of the bike.

His mother tried to sue me for his injuries. She got my work number (presumably from her son the thief...after all, he knows where he stole it from) harrassed me about "ruining his life, causing his injuries, running up medical bills, and pressing false charges" She hired an attorney who contacted me as well. Never heard another word from him once I sent in a copy of the Police Report.

The replacement plastic wasn't right. The bike was pearl white. The replacement pieces had more pearlescent coating. You could tell which ones were different under some street lights.

My '84 RX-7 was stolen too. Dallas Police contacted me several weeks later to advise me they had "recovered" it.
It was no longer a car. It was a burned out shell of what had once been an RX-7. Just the rear clip.
The lot actually got threatening. That if I did not pay them for recovery and storage, they would seize the car and sell it at auction.
"You want me to pay $775.00 for $50 worth of car? Do what you want with it. It's barely scrap metal now."

If my car gets stolen? I don't want it back now. I'd rather deal with a greatly de-valued insurance settlement than go through any of that again.


If you fail to have the appropriate insurance coverage for such an incident, you as the registered owner are responsible for the impound/storage. If your policy covered these types of things the insurance company is responsible for that bill and to pick up your now junked car.

Cars are a huge liability to insurance companies, as well as us the owners. The business who had your vehicle sure shouldn't become a victim of you because someone else victimized you.

If mine is ever stolen, I can only hope it is never ever seen again!
 
In the late 80's, my '75 Impala, which looked like it had been through a war, was broken into at the train station and the stereo stolen, and a month later the car itself was stolen. The first question the police asked me was did I lock it, and when I said yes, I was asked if I was sure. I informed Officer Friendly that I've missed trains by going back to make sure my car was locked, so, yes, I was positive it was locked.

Car, or rather the shell of the car was found in a swampy area just down the road from a used auto parts store (surprise, surprise). Everything under the hood except the engine block was gone, along with the tires, speakers, and the cheap JCPenney 8-track stereo that my dad installed to replace the better radio that was stolen a month earlier. Since the first theft damaged the dashboard, the replacement was mounted with some brackets my Dad fabricated and the idiots actually took the time to cut the dashboard around the radio to take it -- all that effort for a cheap 8-track? Talk about stupid...

Since found it was in a different city than the one it was stolen from, the county sheriff called me at 5AM on a Saturday morning to tell me they found it. Turns out that it was found the following day, but it took them almost a week of storage fees before they figured out who the car belonged to and called me.

Fortunately, State Farm totaled it because as much as I liked that car, I sure didn't want it back.
 
Reading these posts reminds me of how far the world has declined from when I was young. I have a client who is a Polish immigrant. When he first came to Canada in the late 50's he got a job in the local BF Goodrich Tire factory working night shift. Across the street was a used car dealer that never locked their cars, and in fact left the keys in all the used cars even when they were closed. During their break they would go over to the car lot and take a car out for a joy ride, but always brought it back before the end of their break. I'm sure at some point in the 60's the car place had one stolen and began to lock them at night.

Today, they would be all stolen within hours if keys were left in them
 
In our newspaper a local turned his car in stolen...Turns out to be some expensive car with onstar or some gps tracking system from the factory. Insurance company was able to track the vehicle and sent the police to investigate and recover the vehicle. Turns out the vehicle was in a back garage of the owners property that turned it in as stolen. Police arrested him, but I never did hear anything more about it.
Won't be long and everything will be tracked electronically, especially if they start putting chips in peoples [censored].
 
If there is a run down low rent district that in general you would never want to drive through, get a few friends and a old beater of a car and go for a ride through those type of neighborhoods being sure to cover all streets.

The low rent district has a much higher rate of people who would steal cars, and when they are done with their joy ride they often leave it within walking distance of where they live.

One of my brothers once had a car stolen and the police recovered it in the local low rent district. If you do not trust the police to find your vehicle, then go and search the low rent district yourself (with some friends).
 
Of friends/family this has happened to, the vehicle was recovered, but with damage.

My cousin's 1997 Ranger was stolen around 2000 in Birmingham, AL out of a driveway at night. No keys in it. The truck had a bunch of power tools in it. It was found abandoned where it got stuck in the woods on a powerline easement trail a few days later. Not sure if the police were out there patrolling, or if someone reported seeing an abandoned vehicle back there. The rear window was smashed out, and all of the tools in the truck were gone, but otherwise it was not damaged.

My former roommate left his 1997 Ranger parked at a gas station with the keys in the ignition while he went in the convenience store. A crack head jumped in and took off. The police were pretty prompt about taking a report (Charlotte, NC), and they spotted the truck being driven while out patrolling later that night. When they lit it up, the thief took off. They chased it for a couple miles, then thief jumped it over some railroad tracks. The truck went airborne, then landed in a ditch. The thief jumped out and tried to run on foot, but was caught. The front bumper on the truck was tweaked a little, but no other damage. The thief did eat an Arby's sandwich my roommate had bought just before the truck was stolen.

Another roommate's '98 Civic was stolen, also in Charlotte. It was taken from student parking on our college campus. Locked, no keys inside. It was found about a week later across town in a hood, on cinder blocks. They took the aftermarket wheels and head unit, and smashed a window to get in, but didn't take anything else.

The odd thing about all three of these thefts...they were manual transmission vehicles. Statistically, automatics are much more likely to be stolen because a lot of hood rats don't know how to drive a manual.
 
Originally Posted By: MalfunctionProne


They actually asked when the last time I changed the oil was. Really? Oil?


My guess is, they wanted to know if someone else was in possession of the keys other than you recently. Perhaps they know of someone with a history at a local oil change place, or have noticed a pattern of cars being stolen after being serviced at a particular shop. An oil change shop would have access to your key for a period of time, probably has your address show up on the work order, and knows what your car looks like.
 
Originally Posted By: BISCUT
Originally Posted By: Spazdog
Cops here do not go out of their way on stolen vehicles.

I could see my motorcycle being stolen. Got to the phone and gave the 911 operator detailed directions about which direction the thief was headed.

It took the police department 4 hours to respond. It was at that time that the report with the plate number went out.

It was recovered when the thief crashed it. Hurt himself good and proper. Blood all over the right side of the bike.

His mother tried to sue me for his injuries. She got my work number (presumably from her son the thief...after all, he knows where he stole it from) harrassed me about "ruining his life, causing his injuries, running up medical bills, and pressing false charges" She hired an attorney who contacted me as well. Never heard another word from him once I sent in a copy of the Police Report.

The replacement plastic wasn't right. The bike was pearl white. The replacement pieces had more pearlescent coating. You could tell which ones were different under some street lights.

My '84 RX-7 was stolen too. Dallas Police contacted me several weeks later to advise me they had "recovered" it.
It was no longer a car. It was a burned out shell of what had once been an RX-7. Just the rear clip.
The lot actually got threatening. That if I did not pay them for recovery and storage, they would seize the car and sell it at auction.
"You want me to pay $775.00 for $50 worth of car? Do what you want with it. It's barely scrap metal now."

If my car gets stolen? I don't want it back now. I'd rather deal with a greatly de-valued insurance settlement than go through any of that again.


If you fail to have the appropriate insurance coverage for such an incident, you as the registered owner are responsible for the impound/storage. If your policy covered these types of things the insurance company is responsible for that bill and to pick up your now junked car.

Cars are a huge liability to insurance companies, as well as us the owners. The business who had your vehicle sure shouldn't become a victim of you because someone else victimized you.

If mine is ever stolen, I can only hope it is never ever seen again!


The tow lot in question had stacked on an additional $500 in fees beyond the city contract prices. I'm sure it was all quasi-legal.

The subframe had been torch-cut at the firewall. There was nothing in front of the firewall. It would never be a car again. It was scrap metal. I think they were gambling on the fact that a then 9 year old RX-7 would have comprehensive insurance and they could write in any number that they wanted for the check from the insurance company.
 
While I appreciate the info about how most feel the police are looking for the car, I wonder what specifically the Newark P.D. is doing, beyond running the license plates of any car they pull over for any kind of violation. Some say they have an Auto Task Force of some kind. I do recall, in certain and select parts of this city - Central Ave, sometimes South Orange Ave, North Newark by Roseville and Park Aves going into East Orange - they had older Suburbans with very large push bars over the grill, my understanding was that they were called "pushers" and would bring about a quick end to a car chase.
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That, and every week there would be either an Acura RSX or its late model (2001 or later) Civic equivalent being chased through and around blocks with police in pursuit. This in the mid-2000s.

I now see a record low of police. During the day, they have some brand-new 2015 Chevrolet Tahoe LTZ or whatever it is, sitting in front of a grocery store in afternoons.. also, an unmarked Honda Accord coupe, also unmarked Hyundai Genesis. Then, at night? Nobody. They let a stolen car sit for more than two days before they recovered it. More like three. Also, I noticed a wet towel draped over my trunk.. days before it was stolen. I know it was wet because I had to remove it from my car.

I also do not know why they did not want to see a picture of the car. That, and why ask about the mileage and oil.. why not ask directly if we know who may have taken it, or who had keys. The key is still in my pocket.

All they did was take a report, as this was close to this Thanksgiving weekend. I still want to talk to an Auto Squad Detective. Again, I did not want my car to be just an entry on a list of probably about 150 stolen cars.

I do not go out at night. I do not know anyone here. I do not have the slightest where it could be. Though, when it gets back.. time for an ignition cut-off switch, with timed circuit to start the car, key looks like a headphones jack. Or the locks that keep the brake pedal from being pressed, maybe even one for the gas, too. I also parked normally, in a row of cars. Make a tow truck have to work to get it out from a normal parking job, even to drag it, all doors locked and can't shift it nor start it nor depress brakes. And it was an automatic transmission.

So far, nothing on Craiglist yet, except for a green car like mine selling for $2800.

I am going to ask to talk to them anyway, but will I encounter resistance when I go to the front desk (they no longer let you go straight into departments at the police station, it is all a front desk) and ask to talk to an Auto Squad detective? Should I try another precinct, I believe the 4th was mentioned when front desk lady wouldn't help me until I proved insurance, and yes I DID get chewed out about the card and registration being, God forbid, IN the car that was taken?
 
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