SAguirre

Well, for whatever its worth,

One reason MBs might not be stolen so often is that unless you take them out of the country, they tend to be harder to unload in the stolen market. Also, MBs tend to be more conspicuous than a Honda Accord. I converted my Tele-aid to digital over a year ago and I got the lifetime subscription. I was told that Tele-aid has three antennas since it is very likely that they might get damaged in an accident.

I was in Seattle this summer and I took the ferries quite a bit. I had to remember to hit the towing button by my center rearview mirror before I turned of the car. I forgot to do this the first time. Apparently my car knew that it was moving without the ignition being on. My alarm went off and Tele-aid called my cell phone saying that my car’s alarm had been going off for longer than a minute and it was moving without the ignition being on. They even knew that I was arriving in Kingston! Then there was an announcement on the ferry stating that there was a white Mercedes with the alarm going off. It was a bit embarrassing.

Needless to say, I don’t think that I will forget to hit that button again if I am on another moving platform when the car is off. All these little annoying things are what make MBs a bit harder to deal with as a thief.

Steve

220S

Here in LA, as in all major cities, the cars are not unloaded on the 'stolen market.' Car theft is all about car parts. Car parts and no VINs.

fwiw, several years ago I rented a studio in Koreatown near downtown LA. Below my workspace, and unbeknownst to me, was a full fledged chop shop. The cops raided the place three weeks later. Turned out they were doing several million dollars a year in business to all the Mom and Pop auto shops in the city for the past ten years.

Dema

Since technically MB it harder to steal, it is also much easy to find thieves, just because not every kid can do that.

vettdvr

Probably least stolen because they know about the cost of maintenance and reliability!

gaazmon

Also, some MBs and high end cars that are stolen are stolen by people hired by the vehicle owners.

German auto parts are a good market. Lol, have thought about it many times to strip my MBs, pay off the loans, and sell the parts online or something.

220S

With the used car market the way it is now, it might end up being more profitable selling a used car in pieces instead of selling it as an intact car.

sdunham

I had the same thoughts about "stolen car" market when my C5 Corvette was stolen by some scumbag(s) from the Pepsi Center in Denver a few years ago... It was stolen from under a large street light, during a concert, and the thieves drove it right through the Security Gate with multiple Security Guards like they owned it. Apparantly no one cared when the alarm went off, or didn't notice, or the alarm didn't go off because the thieves may have had a pass key with the correct resistor value for the ECU to think it was a legit key. It wasn't towed because there is only 1 authorized towing company allowed in the Pepsi Center parking lots and they and security claimed ther weren't any tow trucks in that lot that night... I hypothesized that the car was stolen by some exotic car thief for the European or Mexican Car market, or that is was parted out for the vast array of expensive mods on the car... NOT...! It became evident when the car was recovered months later that the thieves were simply scumbag joy-riders who drove the car into the ground, put 4000 miles on it in a neighboring city, and apparantly weren't too concerned about getting caught... The ignition switch wasn't damaged so they had a key somehow. The car was beat to death, evident by the bald rear tires, wads of rubber in the rear wheelwells, broken shifter handle (6 speed), fried emergency brakes, body damage from going airborn and bottoming the car out, dirt filled interior and under hood... I settled with the insurance company before it was recovered so they owned it. The car was NOT salvaged ( no salvage tittle ) but rather was auctioned off to a Dealer in Wyoming who tittled it for 22 days, then sold it to one of the largest Chevy Dealers in Denver. It was then listed for sale in Autrotrader, at Kelly Blue Book Value, and CarFax showed it had a clear tittle with no record of ever having been stolen... It now resides back in Colorado Springs where presumably some poor fool has no idea the car was ever stolen and beat... That's the reality of stolen cars sometimes... The whole ordeal was a nightmare and I hope you never have to go through it...

gaazmon

Yes, if you match the resistor value(s) to the passkey or passlock system, you can start the car. The old-style transponder bypass modules worked the same way. It had about 10 or 12 dip switches, don't remember. You read the resistor value with a potentometer (I think that's what its called). Depending on that you match up the dip switches either on or off. Also, each GM model and year had a different combination (evident on the user manual of the module).

Ya, the car manufacturers thought the transponder system in the keys was the God send they needed to get rid of car thieves. Ya right.

It's unfortunate how people think that with just a keyless entry and even a factory transponder key system, their car is unjackable. I can bet otherwise. Even with a "rolling-code" system for your remote or transponder chip, there are only a preset amount of codes, like a 1000 (I think the transponder chips have only a couple of hundred). You know how easy it is for a guy with a laptop with a RF code grabber and RF signal transmitter to go through 1000 codes?