Breaking into a Prius...

Our police will come for a lost cat. Different locations, different priorities. Being given a defective equipment warning for a burned out headlamp will get your name in our county newspaper. We live in what you might call a "slow news" area.

Tom

 

I was getting that feeling too the whole time reading the messages. I figured the link was going to be to some anti theft device for prius. Who the hell steals a laptop but leaves the Ipod. I now think her friends played a prank on her. lol

 

The rash of trolls recently has people on edge for sure, but there's nothing particularly trollish here. It looks like someone posting about a break-in, not really maligning the model or the brand.

Give people the benefit of doubt, and if they start actually acting like a troll, then go ahead and report them. Otherwise you may be scaring off a new member who really was just worried about their own safety and the security of their expensive property in a dense urban area. That's not really a ridiculous thing to worry about.

 

You haven't tried to do that with your Prius, have you?

Here's my experience from 2006 (I was rcroft then):
http://priuschat.com/forums/prius-main-forum/8718-chinese-err-japenese-puzzle-box.html

 

According to a friend in the Chicago Fire Department they are stealing Prius off of the street in Chicago.

Supposedly the thieves rented multiple Prius and copied the keys from them. No word as to which key it was they copied. Only the bad guys know if it was the mechanical key or the fob. How they got the car out of there is simple, a tow truck comes up and takes it! Off to the shop for a reprogramming and change of the vin, then sell it in another state.

So yes the Prius are being stolen and they are being targeted in Chicago as high value merchandise.

I doubt that anyone uses a slim jim to open the door. I have seen the cops try to open a car door and the fire dept try to open the door to get out a trapped dog on a hot day. The damage they did to that car when they pried the door, yes pried the door open, was amazing. That door was wrecked, bent, window cracked. That driver then was given a ticked and arrested for multiple reasons.

 

Huh? So they stole the cars which they previously rented? That would leave an ID trail to follow. And if they were going to flatbed the cars and reprogram them anyway, why bother to steal the keys? You Chicago friend's story sounds like bulldada. Can he reference any media accounts of the thefts?

Random cops and firemen don't necessarily know squat about finessing a locked car.

 

LMAO AHAHAHA Sorry for your loss, but this is just too funy.... they stole your chapstick!? ahahaha omg whats the world coming to...

for the ipod i guess the thief was like.. Wth is this music ew! *trows the ipod away*

the sunglasses? thief: *looks at himself on the mirror* lookin good, baby!

im sure he forgot about the sunglasses, he must be like "doh!" so becareful and make sure u dont leave anything of value in your car.

Also you can consider window tints so no one can see whats inside, depending on your state laws.

 

Slim jims are passe', they only really work well on older car
doors. The big thing nowadays is the air wedge that simply bends
the window frame away from the weatherstripping enough to allow
a long tool to be slid in to probe around various interior parts
like lock buttons, handles, etc. It's quick and non-damaging
in most cases.
.
You can see just how flexible the doors are, even with frames
around where the windows go, by grabbing the top corner and the
body of the door and simply pushing/pulling. Or try leaving
your fingers in between the top of the frame and the roof and
!gently! pushing the door toward closed -- you might even be
able to get it to the first latch click without pain, and see
how large a gap a gentle bend can leave.
.
No car is immune to the tow truck method, either.
.
_H*

 

That didn't work in my case. You can probe all around in the car and it just laughs at you.

See my experience in the following:
http://priuschat.com/forums/prius-main-forum/8718-chinese-err-japenese-puzzle-box.html

 

I was shutting the rear door, and at about the same moment that the swinging door left my hand my dog turned his back to the door and accidentally placed his tail out through the top of the doorway.

He wasn't happy. Yelped first, then turned and barked at the door and his tail. I quickly opened the door, and felt horrible for what had happened. I was sure that his tail would be bloody or damaged.

I checked it out, and it was fine. No blood, no sign of injury, no behavior indicating pain once the door was opened. The dog has not demonstrated any fear of or concern about the door or doorway to the car. Wow was I surprised, and thankful.

While I realize that the "give" at the top of the door makes it easier for a thief to get into the car, I'm really glad (as is my dog) that it is there.

 

NYC is better than it used to be in terms of crime, but I have a couple old school NYC car anecdotes to share:

1. A friend of my mother was moving from one apartment to another. They had a car, and wanted to load things into the car to make the move. Fearing theft if the car was left for long-ish periods, they came up with a plan: They carefully measured the interior of the car, and in the apartment they laid out a masking tape outline in the shape of the car's interior with poles marking height. They carefully arranged carloads inside the apartment first, and then in speed-relay fashion, loaded the car by transferring the contents of the car mockup, front-to-back as fast as possible. They managed to load up and move 3 car loads without anything going missing. The added benefit was that the cargo fit really well into the car.

2. I don't know if this is apocryphal, but I was told by a friend that they saw a beat up old car parked in NYC with a handwritten sign in the window that said "NO RADIO!" In the empty space next to the car, some wiseacre left a beat up old car radio with a handwritten sign that said "NO CAR!"

 

I'm hoping we don't see the theft rate go up on our cars, since they are in such high demand. The laws of supply and demand unfortunately apply to the bad guys, too.

 

.
Stole the laptop, 'played' the ipod but traded for the chapstick? Rigggggggggght.

You probably left the car unlocked, forgot the chapstick in your old jeans, didn't remember you were rolling through playlists earlier, and your laptop is still at the library where you left it - or, was.

Are you posting here to alibi some theft claim your conspiring?
Or maybe there really are dumb criminals who take time to view ipod playlists before leaving with a laptop and chapstick.

Sorry to hear if this really happened, but it sounds fishy
.

 

thiefs will take random stuff some times. My parents had their car broken into (the doors MAY have been unlocked) they ripped open the locked glove compartment and ended up stealing 50 cents and the owners manuals... it was more incontinent than anything else

and when i was younger i got my thumb slammed in a car door, the door shut completely and locked! it hurt like a bitch but when we finally got the door unlocked my thumb wasn't broken and i only had a few scratches on it, nothing too bad

 

Could you tell this by the yellow fluid on the floor?

Tom