How to make sure it doesn't get stolen?

[dyslexic teddybear]

An alarm that detects voltage changes, tilt , door,  hood,  trunk, gas cap opening. Disables start  and ignition, sirens and horns blaring, then sends a message to your fob or phone..... help, bring SIG !

Pepper spray canister with a squib that discharges inside car by remote.

GPS tracker.

Youtube video of car thief's being hung after castration.

Good ideas

Likely set off the pepper spray myself a time or two......but then I would know it worked.....

[Fred]

      Apparently thieves nowadays don't know what a clutch pedal is for..

That's funny.

[Lord Warlock]

while it won't keep someone from hauling it off on a flatbed trailer, there is a cheap solution from someone hotwiring the ignition and starting it up to drive off with it.  And it is cheap and effective.  Try it out and see if you agree or not.  

Remove the wire from the ballast resister, that runs to the coil, (i believe it is the plug on the right side)simply unplug it and let it dangle.  The car will usually start, but will die when you put it into gear and try to drive it off, and then it won't restart again until you plug it back into the ballast again.  When you return to your car, pop the hood, connect the wire and drive normally.

A friend showed it to me when i drove the car regularly, and i tried it out and it worked, so I never bothered with an alarm system even when parking in the worst parts of town.  

[69rtse4spd]

If you take the coil wire with you , could make up a dummy wire to put in its place, just don't lose the real one.

[A383Wing]

to stop from hot wiring the car, I put a kill switch under the dash that connects the negative side of the coil to ground...they can put 12v to the positive side of the coil all they want..it will never start

I did this as well, but I made my cigarette lighter the kill switch. Push it in like you are heating it up to complete the circuit, pull it back to break the circuit.

Now I like that idea.... 

[myk]

1.  Alarm systems are for pissing off your neighbors, not protecting a car.  Nobody gives a crap when they hear an alarm going off and somebody is looking frustrated and messing with the door lock.

2.  A tracking system is needed.

3.  A flatbed tow truck can beat any anti-theft system on the planet.  But it can't hide from a tilt sensor that remotely notifies you the car is being dragged onto the flatbed.

4.  As for the guys who plan to drive it away - kill switches, with hidden wiring, in UNIQUE places.

5.  Insure it for an agreed-value figure.  

The alarm system is more for me; I couldn't care less about the neighbors not caring about me.  The Charger rests a mere few feet from where I rest my own head and I would easily hear the alarm and respond accordingly.  Does this help when I'm not around the car?  Obviously not, but every little bit of prevention/precaution helps IMO, and besides; that alarm just might alert the right person and they just might respond appropriately.  I think there's still hope for humanity.  

Since I will be running a mechanical fuel pump I thoughts about having a kill switch for spark and a killswitch going to and electric fuel cutoff solenoid.   

I suggest an eletric pump.  Personally I prefer a mechanical one, but an electrical pump is easy to help make the car harder to steal.

  Keep it in the garage like the insurance says it has to be...

    otherwise... it's a 5 speed.    Apparently thieves nowadays don't know what a clutch pedal is for..

Garages are great for keeping cars out of the elements but again; if someone wants to take whatever's in that garage it's going to happen.  All it takes is the right time, the right tools, and the right thief...

[WHITE AND RED 69]

I've been thinking about an alarm for mine as well, but seeing how we don't 'DD our cars do you ever have a problem with battery drain?  What specific Clifford model do you have? 

Guys, an important thing to remember is that nothing is "unsteal-able;" you can only make it more difficult to be stolen.  Sad but true, insurance is probably your best ally here...

I have a Clifford Matrix 12.5. Or something like that? It's about 5 years old so they probably have something a lot better out now. The LCD screen is generic but it lets you know what happens. That way if the remote says the door is open, I know to get moving! The speaker looks like S**T under the hood but in the end it's worth it to me.

No problems with the battery drain. Longest I left it without starting or charging was like 2 weeks and it started up just fine. The old clock in the dash would kill my battery quicker than the alarm would. 

[Mr Bigblock]

Pull the Steering wheel off LOL

[nvrbdn]

mine sits in a garage that is watched by cameras. but the important thing is the motion alarm. it reads movement, but it only sounds the alarm in my bedroom. so if the car is bothered, the only notice they will get is the noise they hear when i cock my shotgun.

[Patronus]

Never take your eyes off it. There's basically two areas of concern: when your driving it, and when its in storage/parked. Cameras with the ability to notify you of movement around the car. As simple as a motion light only a camera. Patch it in to your smart phone and you'll have instant real-time on-site video. When you're out and about, never, ever take your eyes from it.

[polywideblock]

Pull the Steering wheel off LOL

friends car got ripped while he had the steering wheel in his room at the hotel , they didn't get that far turned out they had used a pair of visegrips   

[1974dodgecharger]

Pull the Steering wheel off LOL

friends car got ripped while he had the steering wheel in his room at the hotel , they didn't get that far turned out they had used a pair of visegrips   

would like to see that done with manual steering...imaging the vice grips clawing away at the thread with manual steering.

[472 R/T SE]

I used to think about someone stealing the car, now I don't really care. I can always buy another one.

I used to lay awake in bed at motels worried someone might jack my ride.   Any sound & I was up looking out the window.  Not any more.  The car's replaceable, my sleep isn't.   

We have the LoJak in my wife's SRT.  Previously I would do things to help deter the thieves
-like turning the wheels all the way one way or the other,
-baby monitor left inside car,
-MSD 6al has the built in kill switch,
-etc.

I finally come to the realization (helped from watching the reality tow truck service shows) that it don't matter what we do, if someone wants our rig they're gonna get it.

If you don't have proper insurance or take the necessary steps to deter theft, leave it in the garage.

[6spd68]

to stop from hot wiring the car, I put a kill switch under the dash that connects the negative side of the coil to ground...they can put 12v to the positive side of the coil all they want..it will never start

I have a hidden switch like that as well, only with an added fuse along the line to the switch.  Worst comes to worst, I pop the hood and pull the fuse.  This way, even if they find the switch, good luck at getting ignition suckers 

Actually saved my car on me once Winter 2009-2010...   

I had my 87 Thunderbird (347 Stroker - TKO600 - 8.8" 3.55 POSI) parked in one of those outdoor storage tent things for the winter.  This was in my driveway, right next to my house.  Ended up being sent to Thunderbay to work on diesel generators in cargo tankers for a few weeks late February, early March.  The last day there was a warm 16*C (in the 60's for you Muricans that can't comprehend the metric system  )  Needless to say, after 4 weeks of -20* mornings, I couldn't wait to fly home and drive my car for the first time of the year.

Flew home, and in a rush went to get the car started up.  Got into the tent, and for some reason, the drivers door was unlocked.  Look in, and there's my wiring harness sitting on the floor looking up at me like "HEY BUDDY  !"  They litterally tried everything short of bumpstarting the car to get it moving; jumping it off the block, hot wiring, they even hit the switch(Which pisses me off because it leaves me to believe someone I know was in on it).

After I got all the wiring back together, without even priming the carb, it lit right up (telling me they flooded it good as there was still enough gas to get it started with no pedal action).  I had been gone for 4 weeks, do the math and tell me how much gas they probably pumped into her.  To this day, I'm still happy they didn't steal my Carb (750 Holley VS) or anything else for that matter.  I'm sure they would have stripped my car right down, or at least taken the driveline and torched the shell.  So that little fuse ended up saving me quite a bit...

[hatersaurusrex]

While a garage is certainly not a 100% deterrent, mine makes it pretty tough.  I have a separate detached garage behind the house, with no view from the street.   The yard (as well as every neighbor's yard on both sides and behind) is fenced.   There's a driveway that goes between my house and my neighbor's, and it's only wide enough to get one car through (unless you want to drain my neighbor's pool first).  He also has a wooden fence inside of his chain link.    My dad keeps his truck parked in my driveway, and I park mine right behind him.  The yards all have a steep ditch at the end, meaning you'd have to come out of a driveway. This leaves thieves with two options:

1. Move the two trucks out of the way first (both of which have immobilizers) to bring it around front.
2. Cut mine AND my neighbor's fence and get the car out that way (and move his truck out of the driveway first) which means cutting through four runs of fence.  Not likely.   You can't get to the garage really from any other angle.

The only weak spot is the neighbor behind, and I'm putting a swimming pool right in front of her fence this winter, so there goes that unless they want to learn how to build a bridge or own a hovercraft with a towbar.  The other two sides are blocked by trees, so unless they've got stealth lumberjack skills, my garage will be boxed in quite nicely.

Outside that, the garage itself will be getting getting cameras, and alarm, and kill switches for the car itself plus lojack.    I'll sleep OK at night I think.

With my luck, I'll get it jacked in the Home Depot parking lot after going through all that

[AKcharger]

One the rare occasion we're traveling and at a hotel I pop the rotor out, good "expedient protection" ...free, easy and effective against most anything but a flatbed. 

Otherwise its in a locked garage guarded by dogs that shoot bees out of their mouths

- Coil wire is OK provided the thieves don't realize they can use any of the spark plug wires to replace it and just run on 7 cylinders :-)

[hemigeno]

In addition to a locked-room-within-a-locked-building plus a conventional alarm system, I also use DeWalt MobileLock devices which are somewhat similar to a LoJack system.  They have a couple of cool features, and were primarily designed for protection of construction equipment left on a jobsite.  Still works great for a musclecar though.  They have options & settings for tamper/removal, GPS locating, GeoFence alerting, Hi & Lo temperature limits, motion detector and door open/close alerts (the latter two of which require accessories).  Each device has an audible alarm, or can be silenced with the alerts sent via a combination of text messaging and/or emails.  Once an alarm is triggered, you can have the system set up a GPS tracking mode which will ping the device at whatever intervals you'd like to track where it goes.

The MobileLock devices are especially great while I'm on the road with the car (trailered or not).  One of the devices is permanently mounted in my enclosed trailer, hooked to a motion detector accessory.  I know it works, because someone broke into my (empty) trailer once while parked along side my shop.  Even though I did not have the horn/siren feature activated, the tiny red light on the motion detector properly motivated them to clear out -- because they were gone by the time I got there.  It hasn't been messed with since.  The other device is magnetically mounted in my car, in whatever concealed location strikes my fancy.  The tamper swich alarm is activated every time it's relocated, but that puts my mind at ease that the system works since I usually get a text message about a minute after it's moved.  If I'm travelling and going to stay in a motel somewhere, all I have to do is activate the GeoFence on one or both of the devices, which uses its current coordinates wherever I'm at.  If either device moves outside whatever radius you select, the alerts are sent out (plus the tracking can start, if you have that setting enabled).  All I have to do is remember to turn it off the next morning...   DAMHIK  

The big drawback is the cost, since it's a monthly fee for monitoring - and you only get a certain number of GPS locates per month (unused pings do roll over, which does help if you keep the service going for as long as I have).  Not being familiar with LoJack, could be about the same thing.

[HPP]

I assume a 45 year old car is pretty easy to steal.. What are you doing to prevent that? Don't answer always park in a secure spot, living in San Francisco, I'm not always able to do so. What about those Auto Steering Wheel Security Locks. Are they safe? If so, any brand you can recommend? Thanks! Erlend

So, are we talking about making it safe while parking it on an errand, while parked for a day at a show, over night by the curb, for weeks at a time, near your house, far away, or what?

Lots of good suggestions in this thread so far, but obviously some are better suited for different situations than others.

[RIDELIKEHELL]

I have an agreed value policy so I get paid "IF" it gets stolen and buy another one   ....Like everyone says if they want it they will find a way to get it.

[Old Moparz]

Still my favorite theft deterrent.   

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=folMMpnkVQk

[polywideblock]

  where do I get one of those and do they ship them in plain packaging ? getting it past Australian customs could be a chore though

[1974dodgecharger]

I got one of those....

That and my car is had to start....

[RIDGERACER383]

What I'm going to do to mine is put a hidden kill switch the is hooked into my neutral safety switch wire.When the switch is on,it won't start and hot wiring won't work either.

[6spd68]

What I'm going to do to mine is put a hidden kill switch the is hooked into my neutral safety switch wire.When the switch is on,it won't start and hot wiring won't work either.

Just remember not to tell people where it is...  As cool as it is to have a secret switch, it loses it's effectiveness when everyone you know is aware of it.

[Old Moparz]

Bought a car many years ago that the previous owner had put a kill switch in. If you're the only driver of the car it isn't a problem, but if nobody else is aware of it, like my Mother & my sister, they'll kill the battery trying to start the car.