Can our trucks be hot wired?

[peter cain]

I got a club, I am now removing the start solenoid every night, and I hid an apple air tag in there. If he’s coming back, it’s going to take him awhile to steal it again, and I’ll find him soon thereafter. A little time is all I’d need. Plus, I’m pretty sure we all know, we don’t have to keep our trucks secure. We have to keep them more secure than the neighbor’s.

 

[Sherman Bird]

I got a club, I am now removing the start solenoid every night, and I hid an apple air tag in there. If he’s coming back, it’s going to take him awhile to steal it again, and I’ll find him soon thereafter. A little time is all I’d need. Plus, I’m pretty sure we all know, we don’t have to keep our trucks secure. We have to keep them more secure than the neighbor’s.

Doing better diligence than others is generally all that's necessary. If at all possible, parking in a garage or fenced courtyard would help!

 

[Docwagon1776]

Well, yeah, like a car thief is going to roll up with a set of tools.... I worked at a dealer many years ago when I drove my 1990 Suburban. I used the club. All my fellow employees gave me endless grief about how cutting the steering wheel, freezing the club with freon and whacking it with a hammer... yada yada yada.. SOO easy to steal it!
I was called dumb for the effort.
This was back when those chevy's were second only to Honda Accords (Accords were the number one car stolen then)
A technician from our Mitsubishi division was an ex-con reformed car thief. He overheard all this chiding and ridiculing me using the club.... One day he told me about his job as a gang member in his bad days which was stealing cars. He told me that he nor anyone he knew in the business of stealing cars carried tools other than a screwdriver. His advice was to ignore those people and keep on using the device (which I was doing regardless of the advice).
My suburban never got stolen.
My customer who uses his club on his 2006 GMC Sierra due to his prior Sierra being stolen, has had no attempts of theft upon this one in the 3 years that he's owned it. He only had his prior one about 6 months.
In a nutshell, if they want to steal it badly enough, they will, but, to quote the fellow employee who actually once stole cars for a living told me "We went after the easy marks... keys left in the ignition, doors unlocked, etc." He stated that he never saw or knew of car thieves who toted tools around to steal cars other than a screwdriver. And that won't trump a Club. I use the Club on my Ranger. I still have the Ranger.

Car thieves come in different flavors. Sounds like your buddy was more the juvenile gang end vs pro chop shop end. Target hardening is great, reduces overall risk, but I wouldn't take one ex-thief's world view quite as broadly as you have. Particularly today with cat thefts and reliable and powerful battery operated tools, it is very very common for adult theft rings to have tools.

It's not the 90s where a screw driver to crack a GM column was the play of the day any longer.

 

[Zoe Saldana]

I got a club, I am now removing the start solenoid every night, and I hid an apple air tag in there. If he’s coming back, it’s going to take him awhile to steal it again, and I’ll find him soon thereafter. A little time is all I’d need. Plus, I’m pretty sure we all know, we don’t have to keep our trucks secure. We have to keep them more secure than the neighbor’s.

Isn't the starter solenoid attached to the starter?

Or did you mean the relay?

You could have added a kill switch to the start solenoid.

 

[Sherman Bird]

Car thieves come in different flavors. Sounds like your buddy was more the juvenile gang end vs pro chop shop end. Target hardening is great, reduces overall risk, but I wouldn't take one ex-thief's world view quite as broadly as you have. Particularly today with cat thefts and reliable and powerful battery operated tools, it is very very common for adult theft rings to have tools.

It's not the 90s where a screw driver to crack a GM column was the play of the day any longer.

Yeah, you're correct. And, due to context limits, I NEVER intended to portend that a "juvenile" thief was/is the end-all in sagacious insight of auto theft. He DID go to the "Big House" unit in Huntsville penitentiary with the bad boys and served hard time, so, make of that what you wish.

There is no panacea for theft or any crime. He, the ex-thief, wasn't trying to offer a "sure-fire" solution; he was merely confirming that, for that day and time, I was trumping the majority of the THEN thieves, at least from the perception of a person who had done it for a living.

There are different challenges across the board today, but one thing has NEVER changed: Thieves are lazy. Looking for quick money. Catalytic converter thefts are a prime example of that. I sold 2 bad catalytic converters to my recycler a couple of weeks ago. These were take-offs from customers' cars. I had to tag then with VIN numbers to address chain of custody liability issues.

If a "Pro Chop Shop" had wanted my Suburban, the Club wouldn't stop them. DUH!

 

[peter cain]

Isn't the starter solenoid attached to the starter?

Or did you mean the relay?

You could have added a kill switch to the start solenoid.

I could add a kill switch to the fuel pump too. Yes I meant relay.

 

[Sherman Bird]

I could add a kill switch to the fuel pump too. Yes I meant relay.

I had a friend in the 80's who bought a Camaro IROC Z28 convertible. He installed a kill switch (hidden). Thieves found said kill switch and stole the car. This went on for a total of 4 times, he "hiding" his kill switch in different places each time. Finally, his insurance company told him to either get rid of the car or park it at night in a more secure location such as a garage. Inasmuch as he didn't HAVE any suitable more secure location, he finally took the car to a pro to install a kill switch. That kill switch was the most clever one I'd ever seen! It was installed in plain sight in the form of an old fashioned dimmer switch on the floor! Even though that car had the dimmer switch on the column, no thief ever figured it out, because it was never stolen again. He said that law enforcement departments use that dimmer switch trick on shifter interlock to prevent thieves from jumping in a running police car and stealing them. Go figure.

My Ranger hat P.A.T.S. anti theft (Passive Anti Theft System) with the chip in the key which must be programmed to the specific vehicle. That system has been incorporated by many manufacturers... the chip in the key system.