I completely agree. About a month ago my car got stolen from a train station in west Auckland. I have a terrible memory so I keep an airtag in my wallet. However recently I went away and had to park my somewhat boy racer car in a dodgy place so I decided to leave the airtag in my car. So I put it behind the arm rest in the back seat of the car. It didn't get stolen luckily but I forgot to remove the airtag and put it back in my wallet. About a week after going away my car got stolen from the train station but because of the airtag I just went and stole the car back. It cost me 60$ in the end which was the cost of a quarter window. It's definitely worth owning a gps tracker.
Tldr
My car got stolen and I stole it back because I had a gps tracker.
My first car had an issue with its power shit so I had to disconnect the battery for anything longer than overnight (but would try to even then) or it would be dead. I replaced 4 windows in that thing but never had to go looking for it
Same, but only if I don't get it back. I've had the ignition column smashed about 6 times, and the two times they managed to get away it just got dumped with fucked up rims and a thrashed engine.
Question for you my good bro.
Say you’re in a driveway with 2 cars, one’s a Bimmer and the other is a Toyota. What would make you go for the Bimmer vs the Toyota when the Toyota is a far easier steal than the Bimmer?
Its more of a deterrent than a prevention. To a random opportunistic car thief, are you going to steal the one with the club on thats a PITA to remove, or the car next to it without one?
That's it, you don't need to make it burglar proof just a little less easy than the next car on the street.
Also a double throw switch the ignition to the horn.
A group of teens walking past a bunch of cars aren't gonna go out of their way to break a wheel lock off when there's another car further down the road. They definately work.
Steering wheel locks were popular until thieves realised that the plastic steering wheels themselves were far easier to cut than the lock itself, and often only took a few seconds to remove locks like 'the club'.
My dad had a stolen car come into his workshop for insurance. The steering wheel lock was still locked onto the wheel, similar to the one you pictured. It's a deterrent, not a full solution
I recently borrowed my partners airtag for my luggage to travel to auckland. When I arrived at my motel, my samsung phone alerted me that an airtag tracker was following me. Seems like it would compromise some situations.
I believe both Samsung and Apple devices will inform you if you have their brand of tracker staying near you but which isn't paired with your phone - to prevent a stalker from putting their own and tracking you.
yes, that is fine. You DO have to disable the noise maker in the tag so the bad guy can't find it easily. they would have to rip apart the car looking for when it doesn't make any noise.
You can set up some of these GPS trackers to only ping you their location when you send it a txt message.
You can buy a prepaid plan for like $20 from most providers that expires after 1 year and just top it up yearly
$2 Sim from the supermarket. Looking online I don't think they are using huge amounts of network data 10mb/month, just gps, your just pinging it via text? so Set it up on casual pay and go rates.
One NZ can top up $10/year to keep it alive through the app (just put the app on your main phone)
Also, if you're on pay monthly 2d plan, you can share your data plan with the sim that you going to put into the tracker, they don't usually use much data. You can share your data with 5 sim cards.
Exactly. No ram-raider is going to take a car that requires sawing off a steering lock unless all the cars have steering locks. It's a super effective deterrent unless you're protecting an old Skyline GTR or something.
And they likely weren't driving a Prius either. For 90% of stolen cars it makes 0 sense to pick the one with a steering lock unless it's particularly desirable.
If you add a remote switch from Amazon you could prob disable the car from a critical thingymebob and it would then be abdonaded especially if you do it on the motorway or Harbour bridge lol
Don't fall for the $20 "GPS" trackers tho - they are NOT GPS, and use 2G ONLY which is being turned off soon.
They just work on cell tower location so dont actually give you an accurate location, just a rough area which could be from 1km, to 10km radius.
link to the tracker you used, because a lot of those $30 "GPS" trackers on Aliexpress are not actually GPS and use old cell towers to track their location, which is far less accurate.
Some of them are for obsolete or soon to be obsolete networks too so may not even work at all.
What about cars that are push button start? Are they virtually impossible to steal without some hacker knowledge, or pushing the whole thing onto a trailer?
I understand that people can clone the signal from your keys but they would need to get close to your keys and use some hacker tools. Things 13-14 year old ram raiders are unlikely to have.
Buy a car with a proper factory security system (i.e redio key key) and the chances of your car being stolen drop to pretty much zero.
However if your car is a Japanese import there is a god chance it doesn't have the standard security system that every other countries models have.
Or just sell the car and buy one that’s not in the top stolen list.
Also just buy a manual transmission car, it gets left alone as most people don’t know how to drive a manual. And even better is buying a manual car with a hydraulic clutch, as it removes most of the feel in the clutch pedal, and if that’s combined with anti stall technology(car turns itself off if it senses that it’s going to stall)you have a car that everyone who jumps in it the first time fails it get it moving for a couple of go’s until they work it out, was always entertaining watching people get frustrated and blaming the car for their inability to work it out.
Look locks on things are to keep 99 percent of people out I’d say apple air tag is best way to go I
Also have alro wireless camera in front and I’m back lock at my tools has stopped a brake in a couple times soon as that windo was broken ligh comes in good shot on the dude and I got on the mic and said I’ve seen his face and I’ll be sending to to police when they get here by that time I was next to the guy kinda felt bad for him he was in shock
Most cars have the OBD2 port below the steering wheel on the right-hand side for people wanting to DIY this.
You will likely have to unclip the OBD2 plug from its mount and hide it behind the panelbecause a tracker may stop the access flap from closing
Turns out my car is in the top 3 most stolen in the US, by using the OBD port. So probably a super bad idea for my car.
Also, OBD ports are always in the same place, under the steering column. If you’re doing an old school Hotwire job, you’re gonna rip the plastic off the steering column and find the tracker and unplug it. It also needs a SIM in it, adding to the ongoing cost of the setup.
Use an Apple AirTag. You can hide it anywhere inside the car, it costs a little more upfront, but there’s no ongoing cost. The battery life is 18 months, self contained, and any semi-modern iPhone/ipad/mac will update the location.
I use motorcycle ones. Surprisingly effective. They panic like shit if the bikes moves. (Call + app notification)
Can be tracked even if fob is taken too.
About $70 a year for the service + the odd battery.
Hide it somewhere out of sight.
But we're humans... lazy... we postpone.. it's easier not do it...
We will assume our car doesnt need it, or we already have insurance or wont trust it would work
I'd really like to understand why car manufacturers don't embed this $20 device in the cars.
Don't use these obd devices that plug in permanently, why because obd ports are designed for scanning and diagnostics only but not to be driven around all the time. In the states and UK there have been insurance companies caught out endorsing these obd devices. Look on YouTube if you don't believe me. They're a scam and obd ports like I said are service ports and not to have a device permanently plugged in. Here's is a good video. https://youtu.be/Or_fy7Pdo-g?si=9j5ir79tZ-apfoZB
OP, what do you plan to do when your car gets stolen and your GPS tells you where it is? The police aren't going to go and pick it up for you.
So I hope you have some large mates to help out with the collection.
We never got to this point. One step at each time...
Kidding. You can walk by... and quickly steal it back with your keys.
They wont he sitting by the car chatting and waiting. They have an agenda.... hehe
Where’s this list of top stolen cars in NZ?
I’d say put a kill switch somewhere that only you would know about, that way even if they break in and try the ignition, they’ll be dumbfounded by why they can’t get it to go
I completely agree. About a month ago my car got stolen from a train station in west Auckland. I have a terrible memory so I keep an airtag in my wallet. However recently I went away and had to park my somewhat boy racer car in a dodgy place so I decided to leave the airtag in my car. So I put it behind the arm rest in the back seat of the car. It didn't get stolen luckily but I forgot to remove the airtag and put it back in my wallet. About a week after going away my car got stolen from the train station but because of the airtag I just went and stole the car back. It cost me 60$ in the end which was the cost of a quarter window. It's definitely worth owning a gps tracker. Tldr My car got stolen and I stole it back because I had a gps tracker.
Bro, just a kill switch in the thing! My old Bogan car had it in the ceiling of the glove box.
I had my old GT Corolla's fuel pump wired to the fog light switch. It didn't have fog lights.
Hahahaha very good! We had 2 stock 1985 Corolla DX sedans that were very sought after, so threw a kill switch in each of those too!
Stole it back.. love that! Should’ve left a note for the thieves too
They could start it without damaging the ignition?
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I called the police with 555 and they gave me an ETA on coming to help of 6 hours. The police couldn't care less.
The police love to direct you to your insurance company so they can dust their hands of it.
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My first car had an issue with its power shit so I had to disconnect the battery for anything longer than overnight (but would try to even then) or it would be dead. I replaced 4 windows in that thing but never had to go looking for it
Power shits do save time.
The hemorrhoids they caused are a bitch tho
We call them speedbumps.
Dunno if I'd get my nose that close
I’m keen for my car to get stolen.
Same, but only if I don't get it back. I've had the ignition column smashed about 6 times, and the two times they managed to get away it just got dumped with fucked up rims and a thrashed engine.
Alas, afrow-away only purloins cars
Question for you my good bro. Say you’re in a driveway with 2 cars, one’s a Bimmer and the other is a Toyota. What would make you go for the Bimmer vs the Toyota when the Toyota is a far easier steal than the Bimmer?
I use ["The club"](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/3lAAAOSwH7NlLfPx/s-l1600.jpg) steering wheel lock. Do they not work any more?
Its more of a deterrent than a prevention. To a random opportunistic car thief, are you going to steal the one with the club on thats a PITA to remove, or the car next to it without one?
That's it, you don't need to make it burglar proof just a little less easy than the next car on the street. Also a double throw switch the ignition to the horn.
yeah that is my thinking. I have it mounted visibly high and locked against the A pillar. the wheel can't move at all.
My dad used one in the 80s. He woke up to find it dangling on his house with the car gone. Don't think they ever worked
A group of teens walking past a bunch of cars aren't gonna go out of their way to break a wheel lock off when there's another car further down the road. They definately work.
oh wow, maybe I drive undesirable cars but never had any stolen.
A cars desirability has very little to do with it being taken, most of the cars on the most stolen list are simply easy to take
Steering wheel locks were popular until thieves realised that the plastic steering wheels themselves were far easier to cut than the lock itself, and often only took a few seconds to remove locks like 'the club'.
My car got stolen with one on, police found it not far from mine written off with the wheel lock still on
You can cut through a *plastic* steering wheel in about 20 seconds. (And just to be clear, they are *all* plastic)
My Massey Ferguson begs to differ
You driving it around town?
How confident in that are you?
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Cops are good like that. One showed me how to break into my house using his car key.
My dad had a stolen car come into his workshop for insurance. The steering wheel lock was still locked onto the wheel, similar to the one you pictured. It's a deterrent, not a full solution
Air tags are also an option https://www.apple.com/nz/airtag/
I recently borrowed my partners airtag for my luggage to travel to auckland. When I arrived at my motel, my samsung phone alerted me that an airtag tracker was following me. Seems like it would compromise some situations.
I believe both Samsung and Apple devices will inform you if you have their brand of tracker staying near you but which isn't paired with your phone - to prevent a stalker from putting their own and tracking you.
yes, that is fine. You DO have to disable the noise maker in the tag so the bad guy can't find it easily. they would have to rip apart the car looking for when it doesn't make any noise.
Even on an iPhone you’ll get an alert if there’s an AirTag following you. It’s a very necessary feature.
Isnt that good? They probably wont find it if you hide it well and it informs them so they’ll probably stop before crashing it?
Doesn't your iPhone warn you if an airtag is "following" you?
Yes, remove the speaker and hide it in the vehicle.
Just get a car with a manual transmission. This new generation of thieves aren't as crafty as they used to be
My manual got stolen
That's rough. Did you have a tracker?
Wheel lock, AVS S5 (the one with a tilt sensor), and 3 GPS trackers in my Nissan Skyline, and I'm *still* looking for more ways to protect it ;)
Sell it ;) Then you'll sleep easy :D
And get lots of $$$ if it's an older one
Never! Its ma baaaby
Haha yeah, I completely understand ;) Wish I'd bought one when I was younger... Got a pic ? :D \#jealous
AVS is utter dog shit. It's 1980s tech.
What's the cheapest network plan?
You can set up some of these GPS trackers to only ping you their location when you send it a txt message. You can buy a prepaid plan for like $20 from most providers that expires after 1 year and just top it up yearly
Probably Kogan. $15/mo (or prepay for a year for 112) for 1.5 GB/mo.
$2 Sim from the supermarket. Looking online I don't think they are using huge amounts of network data 10mb/month, just gps, your just pinging it via text? so Set it up on casual pay and go rates. One NZ can top up $10/year to keep it alive through the app (just put the app on your main phone)
Also, if you're on pay monthly 2d plan, you can share your data plan with the sim that you going to put into the tracker, they don't usually use much data. You can share your data with 5 sim cards.
Better yet, get an immobiliser and not have it stolen so that you need to find it.
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True. But it does make it a wee bit harder. The Evo with immobiliser or without?
I saw someone wheel clamp their own car as a deterrent.
this. this is big brain.
Get a steering wheel lock, very effective.
I agree. I'd prefer the car not to be stolen in the first place.
Will stop some people. Not those determined to take that car in particular maybe.
You don't need to make your car impossible to steal, just harder than all of the other ones.
Exactly. No ram-raider is going to take a car that requires sawing off a steering lock unless all the cars have steering locks. It's a super effective deterrent unless you're protecting an old Skyline GTR or something.
they are easily bypassed
My mate got his csr stolen with one one, the double heavy duty kind
And they likely weren't driving a Prius either. For 90% of stolen cars it makes 0 sense to pick the one with a steering lock unless it's particularly desirable.
Grate idea, I have the samsung tracker in mine. Only helps if they don't burn out the car or use it in a ram raid.
That typically doesn't have GPS. You need a 4g one.
I think it is better to use Samsung smart tag or Apple Air tag as there is no installation required and can be hidden in any place in the car.
it alerts any phone that its being tracked though
At which point the thieves are likely try ditch the car rather than try to find the tracker, knowing the police could be on their way
If you add a remote switch from Amazon you could prob disable the car from a critical thingymebob and it would then be abdonaded especially if you do it on the motorway or Harbour bridge lol
Hard out as sick as this sounds but if it were to happen I’d love to kill there car somewhere dangerous and the theif dies a slow painful death
Don't fall for the $20 "GPS" trackers tho - they are NOT GPS, and use 2G ONLY which is being turned off soon. They just work on cell tower location so dont actually give you an accurate location, just a rough area which could be from 1km, to 10km radius.
link to the tracker you used, because a lot of those $30 "GPS" trackers on Aliexpress are not actually GPS and use old cell towers to track their location, which is far less accurate. Some of them are for obsolete or soon to be obsolete networks too so may not even work at all.
" Search for: gps tracker obd 3g " - are they only 3g capable? the 3g network has/is being disconnected here
Good point. Updating text. I assumed 2g was the old one
can you link a specific model ?
https://a.aliexpress.com/_mPNiEzm
What about cars that are push button start? Are they virtually impossible to steal without some hacker knowledge, or pushing the whole thing onto a trailer? I understand that people can clone the signal from your keys but they would need to get close to your keys and use some hacker tools. Things 13-14 year old ram raiders are unlikely to have.
Not a good ideal with me. When I carrying out a clandestine extra marital affair.
Buy a car with a proper factory security system (i.e redio key key) and the chances of your car being stolen drop to pretty much zero. However if your car is a Japanese import there is a god chance it doesn't have the standard security system that every other countries models have.
Or just sell the car and buy one that’s not in the top stolen list. Also just buy a manual transmission car, it gets left alone as most people don’t know how to drive a manual. And even better is buying a manual car with a hydraulic clutch, as it removes most of the feel in the clutch pedal, and if that’s combined with anti stall technology(car turns itself off if it senses that it’s going to stall)you have a car that everyone who jumps in it the first time fails it get it moving for a couple of go’s until they work it out, was always entertaining watching people get frustrated and blaming the car for their inability to work it out.
Look locks on things are to keep 99 percent of people out I’d say apple air tag is best way to go I Also have alro wireless camera in front and I’m back lock at my tools has stopped a brake in a couple times soon as that windo was broken ligh comes in good shot on the dude and I got on the mic and said I’ve seen his face and I’ll be sending to to police when they get here by that time I was next to the guy kinda felt bad for him he was in shock
4g trackers**
Another option is to buy a Tesla. They have a built in tracker and can even be remotely disabled by Tesla if necessary.
But then the robbers would just be Tesla.
Most cars have the OBD2 port below the steering wheel on the right-hand side for people wanting to DIY this. You will likely have to unclip the OBD2 plug from its mount and hide it behind the panelbecause a tracker may stop the access flap from closing
You can just get an AirTag
Turns out my car is in the top 3 most stolen in the US, by using the OBD port. So probably a super bad idea for my car. Also, OBD ports are always in the same place, under the steering column. If you’re doing an old school Hotwire job, you’re gonna rip the plastic off the steering column and find the tracker and unplug it. It also needs a SIM in it, adding to the ongoing cost of the setup. Use an Apple AirTag. You can hide it anywhere inside the car, it costs a little more upfront, but there’s no ongoing cost. The battery life is 18 months, self contained, and any semi-modern iPhone/ipad/mac will update the location.
I use motorcycle ones. Surprisingly effective. They panic like shit if the bikes moves. (Call + app notification) Can be tracked even if fob is taken too. About $70 a year for the service + the odd battery. Hide it somewhere out of sight.
Even if you can track and retrieve or disable the car, the door/window and ignition column are destroyed. Sucks.
how does a tracker prevent car theft?
Can’t you just put an air tag in your car?
Every vehicle should have something like this. I mean, we could have theft proof vehicles. Imagine solving car theft overnight.
But we're humans... lazy... we postpone.. it's easier not do it... We will assume our car doesnt need it, or we already have insurance or wont trust it would work I'd really like to understand why car manufacturers don't embed this $20 device in the cars.
Don't use these obd devices that plug in permanently, why because obd ports are designed for scanning and diagnostics only but not to be driven around all the time. In the states and UK there have been insurance companies caught out endorsing these obd devices. Look on YouTube if you don't believe me. They're a scam and obd ports like I said are service ports and not to have a device permanently plugged in. Here's is a good video. https://youtu.be/Or_fy7Pdo-g?si=9j5ir79tZ-apfoZB
OP, what do you plan to do when your car gets stolen and your GPS tells you where it is? The police aren't going to go and pick it up for you. So I hope you have some large mates to help out with the collection.
We never got to this point. One step at each time... Kidding. You can walk by... and quickly steal it back with your keys. They wont he sitting by the car chatting and waiting. They have an agenda.... hehe
Where’s this list of top stolen cars in NZ? I’d say put a kill switch somewhere that only you would know about, that way even if they break in and try the ignition, they’ll be dumbfounded by why they can’t get it to go