57 replies to this topic

[Sam14]

Guys a little bit of an update for you guys.

Ive been doing ALOT of digging and well come up with some information.

It seems the have a certain market of "Minis" to go for.

The reason they can get to mini on your drives and not raise ANY suspicion at all because the vehicle they use it dressed up like a council towing vehicle/flat bed with a car crane attached.

First a the area is checked, you are studied. Area is studied.
Vehicle is lifted.
Loaded into a low key or unmarked Artic lorry.
Then taken to its desired location.
Either shipped of with false docs or taken and stripped.

Im sorry to say unless your mini is attached with the latest high tech tracker or you catch these buggers the police wont find your mini.

[Bungle]

us mini owner are the problem

if we weren't happy to buy second hand shells with no i.d, second hand parts from people we don't know with out asking question about the car they came from etc

there wouldn't be a market for these stolen cars and parts

please try and be as careful as you can that what you are buying is from a genuine seller

pick the parts up from their home, get their name, phone number and address and as much info as you can from them

is that guy with a yard full of minis, a toe truck and doesn't like you asking questions really the right guy to be buying parts from ?

if there wasn't a market for stolen minis it wouldn't happen and it's not ford owners buying these parts it's us mini owners

[mini1955]

it might be good if you cover your number plate's up so when you post pics no one gets the number

[haggz]

That's entrapment, fine in the US (we have all seen the US bait cars on Road Wars) but not in the UK. The best it could achieve is finding out where they end up for future reference and to get it back. Sorry to burst the bubble.

Would still be worth finding out where they end up.

the poilce in stevenage put signs up months ago advertising the fact they has set up bait cars. these are big signs around lamp posts in areas that were bad with car thefts. it wont stop smash and grab but it seems to stop car thefts

[Beej123]

Sounds like a good plan but we struggle to get road signs replaces round here let alone get new ones! haha

[cradley-heathen]

i have to say i completely disagree with a previous comment about minis being stripped and then the shells weighed in for scrap. this simply isnt the case, allot of the shells are passed on to dubious buyers who then add their own i.d.

i know a guy who has had some bother recently with minis being messed with on his drive. both day and night one had its door opened, and a vehicle capable of moving teh car has also been seen in the street driving back and forth. on one occasion their was someone in the house during the day, they saw someone on the drive and went out, and the guy just walked away. only for the same person to sit in a car just up the road watching with a companion. not good!

i know sometimes its just joyriders etc, but im not too worried about them, its the organised groups that are most concerning.

[minimartin1]

If its organises crime anyway what they do is
Steal it

Park it somewhere out the way for a week or two (if its got a tracker it wont be there when they go back to it)
If its still there after the trial run it gets stripped/sold

Knew a few people in the past who robbed trailers/forklifts etc

[minimissionary]

So the moral of the story is, install a tracker. Seems pretty easy.

[Bungle]

and ask a few questions when buying second hand parts

[hunterg30]

but there's a device which can detect an activated tracker.and they don't cost an arm and a leg to buy. so the scumbags more than likely have got one

[minimissionary]

So presumably they'll steer clear if they detect one?

[Noah]

Unfortunately theft will never be stopped. The only thing we can do as owners is protect ourselves in the best way, eg; steering locks, Kill switches, trackers.

I plan to use all of these but I won't be telling a public forum where they are.

[Remylebleu]

i know its not nice to have your car let alone your mini stolen but their really isnt anything you can do if someone wants it bad enough, for every suggestion so far theirs an easy counter measure....gps signal jammers are cheaper than gps trackers, organised criminals are smarter than the average car user, organised criminals have more than one person so catching one person wont help, the next person just comes along, logs books are easily counterfeitted plus south american laws are different to ours when it comes to log books and v5's (the continent where most stolen to order cars end up) so they wont veer get reported, plus most minis stolen in england are stolen to order and stripped and unrecognisable within a day as their arent many people who steal cars then try and sell the parts after, bait cars wont help as what area would you put it in? drive it round the country and stop every criminal? people wont stop buying from "dodgy" people because it cheaper and some people jus dont care. getting cars out the country (even to france which someone said is hard to do) isnt when the people working on the docks are poorly paid and they will take a bung, unfortunately garaging your mini isnt good enough as, you rnot always home, you have holidays etc etc. its just another of lifes problems that you have to deal with