As promised, security recommendations…
Firstly, I don’t want to sound like I’m preaching, it’s your choice, I just wanted to share what happened to me and what I’m doing to try avoid it happening again. If my story prevents a single car from being stolen, or better still catches a thief, then I feel like I’ve done my bit.
As you may have read on my other thread, my 3 month old clubsport 45 was stolen whilst we were on holiday.
We live in a small town, borderline village and there’s lots of other nice cars around this area, there’s the usual brigade of German and JLR tractors (that I don’t care for) and other cars, from hot hatches to a Maserati on our street. Our house is straight opposite the recreational park so it’s a good location. The downside of this is the street is quite open and is an access road to the rest of the estate, it’s one of those roads that’s quiet all day except for two periods as people leave/return to/from work.
I parked on the drive, locked the car by double pressing the lock button to deactivate keyless and hid the key in the house. There were no keys visible from any window, every door and window was locked (all windows and doors are fairly new) and we have CCTV cameras that record to a box hidden in the garage.
Disclaimer…. Yes I know garages are for cars and not storing junk, it’s a typical 1980s garage and I’ve never tried to put the car in and see if it fits.
The (insert your own word here) thieves came over the fence and on to the back garden, bust the lock on the French doors, rummaged through all the drawers in the kitchen and dinning room until they eventually found the spare key and drove off like they owned it, the VW we connect system disconnected all services within 25 minutes, I had an email stating this. After speaking with VW Germany, they did a master reset of the infotainment to do this as they didn’t have both keys to become ‘primary user’.
What have I learnt… well, CCTV, especially the type I had, is not a deterrent, they blatantly didn’t care. We’re overlooked, yet, they didn’t even switch off the back garden security light despite it being on an outdoor switch.
If you have euro locks on your doors (Google it and look at your key), the lock mechanism cost £15 and is broken in minutes. The better locks can be bought for £60 and are reinforced, I’m yet to change mine, but there’s loads of information out there on doing it DIY. A locksmith will charge a small fortune.
Not many others are car enthusiasts like us, even the home insurance said the words “at least it’s just the car”. To me, it’s the worst thing they could have taken, I don’t care about the tv and sofa. There is more precious (to us) items in the house, my missus’ late mother’s jewellery and to be honest I’m glad for her sake that was safe.
The thieves touched nothing but the car, but the stress of it all is unreal, even getting the insurance company to issue a voucher for the kids car seats so I could do the school run again took 4 phone calls.
What am I doing different….
Number 1 on my list is definitely a ring security system, I installed it last weekend and it’s great. It’s a visual and audible deterrent and something to alert the neighbours. Next door have one too (they have been very helpful with all of this) so we know to listen for each other’s. If you have an Alexa you can even set the home armed setting to trigger with a “goodnight” routine, we have one setup that switches off the lounge lamps etc.
I am ordering a few apple AirTags, at least one for each car, they’re not foolproof, but better than nothing, I did consider going all out and having a proper tracker, but, we pay insurance for a reason… I want to discourage a future theft and make it difficult, but one thing I’ve learnt… you can’t stop this happening.
I’m looking at changing the locks to better ones like I said above, the plastic part of the door handle is broken and we have the window people coming out this week, I’m going to ask if the outside lock can be blanked on the French doors as we don’t need to unlock it from the outside.
I have considered a disk lock for whatever new car I get, but where do you put your key??? On the car key probably, I suppose it’s a way to slow them down.
Will we use the garage when we go away next? I’d love to say yes, but possibly not. I am thinking about a clear out, but, many on here with young families and busy jobs know, finding the time is much easier said than done.
One last word from me, enjoy your cars whilst you can, who knows what’s around the corner, not just this, but other life changes too. I’ve gone from cars to putting money into a run down house to kids and back to cars now we’re not paying nursery fees…. Life moves fast. For me, it’s not a case of miss what you’ve lost, I’ve grown up a lot from the days of getting bored and swapping cars, I wanted something that didn’t depreciate too much, that was sensible enough to do the school run and was fun when I got out on my own. The 45 fitted this bill perfectly and was a pleasure to own. It was one of my all time favourite cars and I appreciated it even more following the wait and excitement, I bet the b******s have put it in special mode before the oil temperature was hot and taken it to a hand car wash and everything!!
Anyway, onwards and upwards to the next car adventure…. If the insurance ever make me a settlement, they’re dragging their heels.
