Too close for comfort...

G

Georgio

Active member
 Hockley, Essex
Hmm, two beamers, a 3 series and 5 series both lifted off their respective drives within 300yds of me last night.
Both were under 2 years old and ofc no one saw anything until they tried to go to work and both realised what had happened.
So, having my Zed for under a week and also parking on my drive albeit with my wife's car up my arse as it were, how worried should I be?
More specifcally how secure is a zed in comparison to a 3 or 5 series, I thought beamers were supposed to be hard to lift what with the zillion and one different key combos and all.
I do have a lockable garage on my drive but do I really have to stick the car out of sight every night to keep it secure?

Honestly, why can't these gits go get real jobs like everyone else. :x
 
There has been a spike in BMW thefts (seen posts on PH, evo, etc) by people programming new key fobs for the car. Videos on youtube showing you how to do it, with equipment you can buy on ebay for a few hundred pounds. There are a few blind spots around the 3 series and 5 series alarm system, so they break a window there, plug into the OBD port which has apparently always got a 12V feed, and away they go.

If you're in an E85/6 then should be fine as we have a proper key 8) E89 I'm not sure about :? Another car parked right behind is probably enough of a deterrent. If you're not going to be driving the car for a day or so, then put it in the garage :thumbsup:
 
Cheers for the comments guys, I'm almost tempted to break out my old steering wheel lock assuming it would fit over the air bag.
It's a 2006 zed so has a proper key, i'm guessing the bmw's nicked both had silly credit card proximity keys or something.
The sad thing is that this area is really nice with zero trouble normally; roll on insurance renewal and higher premiums I guess.
On a different tack, when my wife was still living at home, she disturbed some rat trying to hotwire her midget. Sneaking downstairs with a hockey stick and her dog she set upon the idiot with gusto, sam the dog ripping the arse out of his jeans and nikki whacking him around his head as he ran off down the road.
He was such a skilled thief that he dropped his wallet in the scramble to get away.
Calling the old bill they went round his house and found him dressing his wounds, guess what he says he was assaulted, (which I guess he was :roll: ) and he wants to press charges for gbh.
Anyways, the old bill go round to nik's and find her still steaming over the ripped out sterring coloumn etc. turns out this plonker was 6'2" and reckoned himself a local hardnut.
Nikki was 18 at the time and about 50 kilos dry.
The funny thing was that no charges were brought in the end because nik said he was perfectly all right when she chased him off the drive and that he must of fell over later ( smart girl) and when it got round what happened, he was the laughing stock of the area and had to move away... :rofl:
 
FYI on steering lock: Saw a TV show with some car thieves, they said that the steering locks mean nothing. They quite literally just pull them off.

Not like they're going to worry about damaging a few things!

If you can't garage, I would get a tracker. The stickers in your window will hopefully be enough. Failing that apparently a lot of thieves leave the car parked up for a couple of days to see if the Bill pick up the car (aka. has it got a tracker). Doubt it would be stolen more than once - although if it is stolen, would you want it back?
 
If you can use it, garage. I went to the effort simply cos I kept having badges nicked. I park the wife's car right up against the door at night, and move it out onto the street every day so I can get out. Slightly more hassle, but I don't care. It's my baby, AND represents a lot of my hard earned. If you think there a risk it could be lifted I would stop talking about it and tuck her away. Like now :| :D
 
The only thing with a tracker is the thread I saw recently where fitting a tracker actually increases your premiums for some perverse reason.
And in my dim distant past I knew a guy who was a bit *cough* shady, picking his brains about various security options for the Elise he reckoned that trackers were a waste of time as he had a nice little gizmo comprising a car battery and a huuuuge capacitor that would charge up and zap a tracker regardless of it's position in the car. Apparently they're welded into awkward places to hamper removal.
Anyways, he seemed to know what he was going on about, well up until he got caught selling a cut and shut to a judge; 18 months R&R at her Majesty's finest apparently... :thumbsup:

Boogle said:
FYI on steering lock: Saw a TV show with some car thieves, they said that the steering locks mean nothing. They quite literally just pull them off.

Not like they're going to worry about damaging a few things!

If you can't garage, I would get a tracker. The stickers in your window will hopefully be enough. Failing that apparently a lot of thieves leave the car parked up for a couple of days to see if the Bill pick up the car (aka. has it got a tracker). Doubt it would be stolen more than once - although if it is stolen, would you want it back?
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Georgio said:
Apparently they're welded into awkward places to hamper removal.
Anyways, he seemed to know what he was going on about, well up until he got caught selling a cut and shut to a judge; 18 months R&R at her Majesty's finest apparently... :thumbsup:
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Trackers welded to the car? Thats a good one, right up there with shorting the alarms by shorting across the indicators with a screw driver.

You actually believe this? What do you think applying a charge of that voltage to a car is going to do to the cars electrical system?
 
You can only do what you can do. TRACKER if you want, out of sight, park in the garage and most important keep your keys safely hidden away in your house somewhere. Make it as difficult as you can without changing your life, if they want your car, they'll take it no matter what. A very sad reflection on our lawless society.

:driving:
 
Not heard of many Z4s getting nicked over the years of ownership and the 'old' model is past most professional thieves' interest by now. Badge theft is always a pain though. I keep the Zed garaged but never had any problems with cars kept on the road or the drive.
Liverpool is such a safe area as all the car thieves go to Cheshire to rob cars :rofl:
 
Georgio said:
Hmm, two beamers, a 3 series and 5 series both lifted off their respective drives within 300yds of me last night.
Both were under 2 years old and ofc no one saw anything until they tried to go to work and both realised what had happened.
So, having my Zed for under a week and also parking on my drive albeit with my wife's car up my arse as it were, how worried should I be?
More specifcally how secure is a zed in comparison to a 3 or 5 series, I thought beamers were supposed to be hard to lift what with the zillion and one different key combos and all.
I do have a lockable garage on my drive but do I really have to stick the car out of sight every night to keep it secure?

Honestly, why can't these gits go get real jobs like everyone else. :x
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Please don't take this the wrong way.
I bet you garage if full of crap and you substantial investment of a Z4 sleeps out in the open air.
Don't worry we all do it.
Only in the UK do we fill our garages with rusty old crap to keep it safe and leave 10's of thousands of pounds worth of car sitting on the drive way at night for someone to vandalise or lift.
Stick it in the garage it will thank you for it.
 
Haha yea you name it it's in there; I've been meaning to clear it out since we moved in ummm 10 years ago but there's always fun other things to be doing like driving around with the top down... :driving:
Plus it's not exactly a wide garage and odds on I'll spank it on the way out when I'm half asleep one morning.
Decided that the best option is to keep sticking the wife's bus close behind alarm on and in gear, rely on the security lighting lighting the street up like Wembley if they so much as look our way, cross fingers and toes and remember to keep a big hammer close by to break their damn fingers if I catch them... :wink:

robertsskippyj said:
Please don't take this the wrong way.
I bet you garage if full of crap and you substantial investment of a Z4 sleeps out in the open air.
Don't worry we all do it.
Only in the UK do we fill our garages with rusty old crap to keep it safe and leave 10's of thousands of pounds worth of car sitting on the drive way at night for someone to vandalise or lift.
Stick it in the garage it will thank you for it.
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Not wanting to give you sleepness nights but Donkeys years ago I had a Suzuki GSXR110K stolen from my garage, with me asleep above it never heard a thing. But the thing is the police when they came round were telling me about another theft they had been to see where the guy had the car parked in his garage with another parked against the garage door, they scum broke into the first car moved it away from the garage, broke into the garage and stole his car.
You can only do so much, but do enough to make you sleep at night, it does make you wonder how safe some of this new technology is.
 
Garage it,means you dont build up a mountain of junk in garage and car stays warm,dry and out of theiving eyes.
 
goon said:
Garage it,means you dont build up a mountain of junk in garage and car stays warm,dry and out of theiving eyes.
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A friend of mine had his car nicked from the garage. He woke in the morning with memories of a dream, where he had heard the garage door open.....

When he went for his car in the morning, car was gone :(
 
Georgio said:
On a different tack, when my wife was still living at home, she disturbed some rat trying to hotwire her midget. Sneaking downstairs with a hockey stick and her dog she set upon the idiot with gusto, sam the dog ripping the arse out of his jeans and nikki whacking him around his head as he ran off down the road. He was such a skilled thief that he dropped his wallet in the scramble to get away.
Click to expand...

I'd have paid money to see that :)
 
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