This morning I found out someone broke into my car and stole some low value junk I had in my glovebox along with a jacket and other stuff. I was home all along and didn’t hear it happening. I am usually one to check twice that the car locks when I leave it, and if for whatever reason I don’t then it auto locks after a while.
Now I’m a bit clueless with this stuff so I’m wondering 1) how they opened it without triggering the alarm and 2) can I do anything to prevent this from happening again? Any contraption/device I can use ?
TIA
Don’t park in sketchy areas. This means bad lighting at night, but even during the day if a place is known for smash and grabs, just don’t park there.
Don’t leave valuables in a car and people won’t break into it. Unfortunately that’s the best advice. Park where there’s good lighting. If you own the property where you park put up motion activated flood lights, but be mindful of your neighbors when you do.
Empty the glovebox and leave it open
stole low value stuff from inside glovebox
don’t leave valuables in cars and thy won’t break in!
Erm…… ok.
As he said that’s the best advice. Don’t choose to make it enticing. That’s about what you can do.
You can’t stop the morons who break into cars just for the hell of it.
That sounds pretty much what happened. I don’t leave anything in my car I would cry over. I have a nomadic life so I can’t really afford to not leave anything behind, most things have a purpose in the car (screwdrivers, my cheap OBDii, the sunscreen cream, rags for cleaning, rain gear in case the rain catches me on the go)The only thing that would have been a nightmare if stolen would be the electronic toll tag, but they didn’t grab that one. But what really got me thinking is that the alarm didn’t go off.
Leave it in the trunk where it’s hidden. If you leave stuff where people can see it someone will break in.
Park under a lot of light. That’s pretty much it. And either have it spotless, like new car clean or full of trash. That’s what I would have avoided in the, very far, past.
I’m not proud of some of my younger years, but some things happened and now I do things to help instead of hurt.
It’s interesting how many lives we live.
This happened to me a couple of times when I lived in Rhode Island, but only if I accidentally left my truck unlocked. Then someone would steal whatever change was in there. Now I live in rural northern Maine, and I don’t even have to lock my front door, much less my truck. This probably isn’t very helpful; I’ll see myself out.
Not a super helpful response, but honestly I’d be glad they only opened it. At our old condo people repeatedly broke into my wife’s car by smashing the window to steal random shit worth nothing, especially compared to the cost of replacing the window.
I remember seeing articles about people leaving their doors open or windows down in places with lots of smash and grabs
I just started leaving my car unlocked for this reason. There have been a few times over the years that I left it unlocked and someone rifled through my shit, but last week they smashed the window. It’s amazing what a mess it makes.
Yes, I got that advice when travelling to Marseille, France. Take everything out of the car and leave the windows open.
As someone who lives in a particularly rainy part of the world I’m grateful I don’t have to do that here
I know someone with a soft topped convertible that does this after the roof got cut open once.
No, not really. And if you have those fancy „keyless entry“ thingies, you are even more at risk as they can catch / expand the signal and send it to the car to open it.
Don’t park on the street or near the street.
Seriously? Where would you have me park instead? Compulsory ownership of lockable garage everywhere I go? Btw this happened in a driveway, they have the light sensors, and the neighborhood isn’t particularly rough. It’s not my home though, I’m just visiting.
The real answer is to improve the economy to a point where petty theft is less popular but that’s probably a lot more out of anyone’s reach.
Twice in the past few years someone has gotten into my car and emptied my loose change container. Thankfully they didn’t mess with anything else. I just told myself they must need it more than I do.
And move your car once in a while, or otherwise make it look like someone is paying attention to it.
I had a car stolen: ten year old cheap econobox, over 100k miles, nothing in the car. I suppose it could have been an impulse, or it could have been that I had to move the car for street cleaning, left it in a bad spot (unlighted, no foot traffic, under a bridge) and left it there so I wouldn’t have to move it again for next street cleaning - the perils of living in a city and going mostly car free but not entirely giving up your car. Anyhow, I came back a week later and it was gone
Police were useless but offered the opinion that stripped parts for a ten year old econobox were valuable
Are you sure it auto locks? The simplest explanation would be that you forgot to lock it, and it didn’t lock automatically. Maybe your home is close enough to the car that it still senses the key is nearby, so it won’t lock itself?
To answer your specific question, don’t keep anything visible in your car. Thieves usually only target cars that they can see have something inside.
A friend of mine used to live in a high-theft area and drive a “rag-top” convertible that he knew would be easy to cut open with a knife. So, he just left it unlocked, with nothing valuable inside, and nothing bad ever happened. A few times, he came back to find the glove box and center console had been opened. But that was it; the windows were never busted and the car was never damaged.
That could be the explanation, as I said I typically check twice but when I parked last time I wasn’t feeling well. Perhaps I forgot. I can’t remember. What I don’t believe is that proximity to the key prevents the autolock. I’m pretty sure it has locked itself even with me standing right next to it, as well as inside.
Anyway what can I do
Either they bypassed the alarm (there’s various hacks for various vehicles, but usually this is rare for petty thieves), or your alarm didn’t go off properly.
Either way, it doesn’t matter. Thieves are in and out in seconds and nobody except the owner gives a shit about a car alarm going off. You’re better off treating it like your car doesn’t even have an alarm.
The best way to avoid your car getting broken into is to make it less attractive than the cars around it. That’s not always easy, though, so it’s kind of useless advice.
I knew people once who always left their car empty. Privacy screen over the trunk/hatch was always open. Glove box was wide open. Ashtray and any places you could store spare change - wide open and obviously empty. They even left the fucking doors unlocked.
They never got broken into, but it must have been a pain to live like that.
My vehicle is camouflaged inside. Even low value belongings are hidden under trash.
There’s solid gold diamonds under the pile of white monster cans
Short answer- no. You can’t stop it.
Best advice is to not leave anything valuable in car, and nothing that could look like it’s hiding something under it or in it. Like no backpacks even if empty.
Ive lived in some areas where every night people would go checking car doors. Ive witnessed countless cars getting broken into just by people checking for unlocked cars. You’ll be surprised how often it happens even in areas where this is a known problem.
Otoh if the doors are locked but there’s valuables in sight then they’ll bust the windows which is why you shouldn’t leave anything in there to begin with.
If I wanted tips on breaking into cars, this is the questions I would ask. Fortunately this place is filled with incompetent dumbasses so we’re all good.
