325 miles & someone stole my tire valve covers!

Someone stole 3 of mine... I lost the other one at the air pump, it dropped into a conveniently placed sewer grate to join probably millions of others down there...

But it gave me an excuse to buy these:

Logo Tire Stem Valve Caps Covers For Toyota : eBay Motors (item 140400558644 end time Sep-15-10 19:57:04 PDT)

 

Man, those are going to look great on my Schwinn. Where do you park?

 

I just use the plain black plastic ones. It never dawned on me to get some fancy ones.

 

I'll hear those baseball cards in the spokes a mile away!

But, hey if you want to bicycle up a 2-3 mile mountain pass, break into my garage, and steal my tire valve stem caps, Ill PM you directions....

 

This is why i tell my daughter she should move from Nashville, back to So Cal.

 

Holy cow!

After reading this post yesterday I checked my car's tires and no kidding...

2 valve covers from passenger side are completely gone and 2 from driver's side are replaced with black ones!

I don't even know when they were stolen or lost or whatever...It has been 14 months now that I have my Prius!

Anyway, no worries. Seems like it's standards practice in So Cal!

 

Where can we find replacement factory silver valve covers?

 

Reminds me of an incident that happened to me a couple of years ago. Not related to my Prius, but a service van I drove when I was still doing field work on geothemeral systems.

I had stopped at Food Lion to do some shopping on my way home. When I was heading back to the van with my cart, I saw a man with a wire coat hanger trying to pop the lock on my driver side door. 5:30 PM, summer time in broad day light. I walked up to him as he was fishing away with the coat hanger and asked him if he had locked his keys in the van. He said yes so I pulled my keys out of my pocket and said " here, use mine". His eyes popped out his head and he took off like he had a rocket stuck up his rear end.

I guess the moral to this story is, some people will do anything, any where, any time.

 

At least until the next time you park in public. Or should you also fear those in your home?! Live with fear of stolen valve stem covers! Mwahahahahahahaha.

 

The valve covers that were on my car were nothing special. No logo, no picture. You can find them in any auto parts store. Pep Boys, Autozone, Advance Auto parts, even Sears has some.

 

Cool, I didn't remember what they looked like and I think my dealer swapped them out for black plastic ones at the last service and I didn't notice until I saw this thread. I guess they didn't care to keep track of these things and assumed the customer wouldn't care (or notice in my case)

What's even worse though is when Costco swaps them out for ugly green ones that stick out like a sore thumb.

 

Yeah, I have found that it is best to put nice valve covers in your pocket whenever you are at a tire store. Especially if they are putting NITROGEN in your tires.

They usually have more than one brand and some are domed and round and some are hexagonal or at least multisided. I have some of each on the shelf, just in case.

 

Geez! I really hate that Costco does that! Are they trying to keep track of which tires are bought from them?

 

No, it is just part of the nonsense that goes with Nitrogen filled tires. They want people to ask why you have green valve covers so you can repeat their BS about how great the nitrogen in your tires works!:tinfoil3:

 

The only problem with buying really "nice" valve covers is I think they just become more of a target for "childish" theft.

So I default to a very utilitarian approach. If I'm using valve covers inwhich replacement would mean paypal and a trip to E-Bay? Ahh forget it...give me some 13 cent generics...it's a valve stem cap...it doesn't have to be beautiful.

 

I have 4 silver tire valve covers for sale. Anyone interested?

(j/k)

 

I wonder if there's a valve cap manufacturer that makes black coated caps that are also metal threaded so they don't attract theives.

 

Just use some black rustoleum