The photos show what I have had to deal with yesterday. Someone broke into my truck by way of tearing up the door lock and then punching the steering column. They did not bother any item in the truck, just messed up both door locks, the metal on both doors, the column and the ignition.

My insurance company is going to send an adjuster out on Monday. With $500 deductible, I am not sure if there will be enough damage to make a claim. They are already upset because last October the truck went through a hail storm, receiving $1700 worth of damage.

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Savages. @$%& savages.

Bummer.A friend who lives in a nice neighborhood in Vallejo Ca.heard a noise in the daytime,went outside and came upon a guy trying to steal his spare tire from under his pickup.Simply amazing.My advice:get an alarm installed.And set it.

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WALSTIB

Sorry to hear this...It'll be more than $500.


rags

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RIP Shipmate

The homes in this neighborhood are in the $300,000 plus and most residents are upper income. Never had a problem before. My truck is a dually and has all the options, including an alarm but I was having some serious work done to the truck and there was no battery. Funny thing is the doors were not even locked so the mechanic did not have to track me down for the keys. Note the key was in the ignition. Had they pulled on the door handle, the door would have opened on either side and the key was in the ignition. It was not going anywhere until it gets a new battery and coil pak.

The only fun thing about this sort of situation is when you get to catch 'em in the act. Rarely happens, sad to say.


Cat

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Think for yourself.

Sorry to hear that,The whole thing sounds like somebody was on some serious dope.Unless they were just born stupid.

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Dum vivo cano

Late on evening, I managed to catch a young man stealing the stereo from the dashboard of my truck, several years ago. Long before the false fronts.

The business end of a Colt .45 caused the fellow to rethink his actions and remain still until the local sheriffs dept. arrived.

George: "Lay very still. If you so much as move, I will shoot you. I will shoot you repeatedly and I will shoot you until you are dead."

Note #1: I would have certainly never shot someone for such an action, but between the Combat Commander and tone of my voice, the 'lil #@$*$% thief didn't know that.

Note #2: I was 28 years old at the time and at my current age of 56, I'd probably just stay in the house.

Had my Explorer broken into 2 Christmas's ago. Took change from the consul, binoculars, camera, scattered tapes all over. And they took my prescription dark driving glasses. Had 1000 deductable & got nothing from my insurance company. Wish you luck.

Maybe you should try to hire that tough looking guy that was in that pic of your truck a while back. I bet he wouldn't leave much of the
*** that trashed your truck. TACC1

Once or twice, I'd like to hear a version of these incidents which would read something like: "Upon hearing a suspicious noise emanating from the vicinity of my truck, parked on my private property, I armed myself with an xxx equipped with a Surefire weaponlight and proceeded to investigate. I found that the late subject had already pried the expensive sound system from my vehicle, stacked various items of my personal property outside the vehicle, as if to make off with them, and was lying stretched across the rocker panel, apparently attempting to start and steal the vehicle itself. When I confronted the subject, commanding him to exit the vehicle and lie prostrate on the ground while I summoned law enforcement, he instead backed out of the vehicle, turned toward me, charged toward me, bellowing profanities, and averring that he would kill me, while bearing some shiny metal object which I perceived to be a weapon of some sort, which put me in fear of great bodily harm or my life, I felt compelled to act accordingly. I'm sorry that the subject's troubled past and long record of very bad behavior led him to this abrupt end, which is entirely attributable to his bad choices, and my defensible ones...

Hey, sometimes we just need to release our inner Walt "Get off my lawn" Kowalski

The door lock is an easy fix you can do yourself. The ignition though would be costly. If it works good, leave it be.

Send me a PM if you need help with the door lock. I've done many of them.

I wrecked my truck twice last year, cost my ins. co 12.5K, this year just to thank me they doubled my ins. on that truck only. I guess I did have it coming...

Wouldn't it be nice to see the thief's legs hanging out of your truck?
"Honest officer. I thought my wife left the door open again. I was just slamming the door shut. Too bad about that guy. Will he ever walk again"?

Back in the late 60's, I was putting an intoxicated subject in the back of a patrol unit. Just as I went to shut the door, he decided to get back out of the car and the door hit his leg very hard. We went to the hospital instead of jail and I was written up and got a verbal lashing.

Now I think it would have been better to just shoot someone. At least there is only one side to the story to deal with.

Shoot first, make up the story to fit second.

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Good life will not Heaven get!

Chevy PU's are #1 on the stolen list. The fact that the goof punched all the locks without testing them first shows his mindset. Kinda like: "well, I'm going to work now, first we punch the door, then we punch the ignition, then we drive away". Sorta like Joe average going to work. For a brief period in my career, back in the 80's we drove our own vehicles on the job. I had a tough time convincing mgmt. my pickup was secure enough to carry 4-6K worth of oscilloscopes and test equipment. Sure enough, someone stole the truck from in front of the house, and took all the stuff. I was beat up by my boss, assured him it wouldn't happen again. About 2 months later they broke in truck, again from in front of the house and they once again took all my recently replenished equipment. I almost lost my job. I took to leaving all the equipment in the shop thereafter. Kinda ironic that my job took me to some of the worst Chicago neighborhoods, for 35 yrs., yet I never lost a thing to a thief there.

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SOS USA

Around here, Ford trucks are the number one target because they are so easy to get into. No more or less so than Chevy.

But with Ford trucks (at about 2007) and GM trucks (at about 2009) and newer both have transponder (chip) keys. They might do a heap of damage but the truck isn't going anywhere.

As stupid as the thieves are, they get wise to this and pick on older trucks without transponder technology.

Insurance figures aren't always factually because many people pay for the repairs themselves because of their deductable, or they don't want to have thier rates raised.

Kinda like the sign I saw at the local Lumber yard. "Prayer will get you to God. Breaking in will get you to God faster."

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Forum consigliere

Theives keep up with tech.
Keyless entry systems vulnerable to high-tech car thieves- Yahoo! Autos Article Page

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SOS USA

His labor rate is too high. Also he is lazy.

My state has a law that says rates cannot be changed, or the policy cancelled, if accidents were not your fault. I had a major accident that was not my fault on 7/1/08. It took MY insurance (Kemper Unitrin) over 2 years to pay off on it. I had another accident with no injuries on 10/16/09 that was partly my fault. They cancelled me. TWO accidents in the last 18 years, no tickets and now I pay $1,970 per yr on one vehicle, $2,164 on another and I am shopping for a cheaper carrier than Progressive.

Try an independent insurance agent/broker. But check out the rating on the company they offer with Consumer Reports (TM and they mean it) or other sources.

Geoff
Who found out his previous insurance company blamed him for backing into a lawyer who was backing up at the time. Which explains partly my distaste for the super privileged class of ghods on earth.

Easy solution:
leave vehicle unlocked with keys in ignition. full tank of gas and recent vehicle servicing.
When the thief is through with the vehicle he will leave it parked in a shopping mall parking lot.
( excuse me, I have to go, my caregiver is here with my meds)

After the second accident in a year or so, my guess is that insurance companies aren't overly impressed with past decades of driving, but rather more concerned about their liabilities going forward. Be careful.

I switched to GEICO a few years ago and slashed my premiums in half for the same identical coverage plus a lower deductible than I had with State Farm. If I'm in an accident I suspect GEICO would be more difficult to file a claim with, and they probably have higher accident surcharge fees than State Farm. To date we are accident free.

I've heard nothing but horror stories about Geico. Hope you don't have to file a claim.