Car thieves have come up with a new way of stealing cars. This new trick is pretty tough to track. This is because thieves have managed to figure out a small detail car owners wouldn’t even bother looking at. This new trick is called “penny in the car door” and here is what you need to know about it.
What car thieves do is, they place a small coin on the passenger side door or rear door. This prevents that particular door from locking (especially if it’s a central door lock). Making it easy for the thief to get into the car. Always check the doors of your car when leaving for work in the morning.
After placing the coin, the thief then follows your car around and once you have parked it at your destination, they get into the car and take it.
That’s it?? And it makes yet another PW article
I think this article is very precise. I don’t wanna waste my time reading a 500 words article on this topic.
Precise how? I don’t understand how thieves will get access to the car using this trick?
Suppose if they have placed a coin on passenger side door before I leave for work. I won’t open that door and even if I do, I will open it from outside the vehicle and the coin will fall off.
Thanks to the centeral locking of Swift which unlock only driver side door if pressed one time. 🙂
Immobilizer 😀
Well the keyless-go system in my both cars just sounds an alarm if any of the door cannot be locked pressing the lock button on the door handles.
after 2 BIG images just when i though im gonna get more info, the article abruptly ends. just as if teh author got hold of few interesting pix from the internet & decided to make an article out of it.
The point is you will not see the coin jammed in the passenger side door, this jammed coin will not let that door get locked when you lock the car while going to work. The thief then can enter the car from the passenger side as the door is unlocked. Drivers don’t usually see the passenger side door when leaving the car, they only see the flashing of the car lights as they press the lock button on the remote.
But I think the Alarm system starts shouting if one of the door is not locked properly. Not so sure on that. Will check on my vehicle.
So, are the car thieves of Pakistan using this technique in Pakistan or not?
Is it relevant to our situation? Or is the article a چربہ from the internet?
I agree with the article abruptly ending, and should’ve had at least a couple of more tricks used by thieves.
So, here’s the rundown. Yes, the door will not lock, and the alarm won’t sound as long as the door is closed. The alarm does not check locks, it just checks the door switch, which shows if the door is properly closed or not. This means the trick is plausible.
Part 2, I have been owning and maintaining cars for quite a long time now, but not trained in the art of car theft in any way whatsoever. Hand me a wire hanger and have a locked car opened in under 20 mins. I’ve successfully opened all of the cars I’ve owned, followed by mistakenly locked key inside. The cars include Japanese WagonR, Cultus, Lancer, Pajero Mini, Corolla Indus and many others for friends who followed the misfortune. Opening the car for a trained person is not the challenge. The challenge is not to let the alarm off once it’s opened, and breaking in to the Krook lock, the “China taala” in the steering cross, and finally, the immobilizer if present. So the penny might save two minutes, but if someone’s adamant enough to follow me from my home in Rawalpindi to my office in Islamabad, I’d guess he’d not be a very successful thief 😀
Here in Pakistan, car thieves do not work the way depicted in the article. They work in groups and follow specific parking lots. Be safe, and Allah hamey apni hifz o’ amaan me rakhey!
So please share protective locks and methods
The only thing that comes to my mind is to add a ‘Open Door’ switch under the hood. If we generalize all car thefts, they have to open the hood to disconnect the security system speaker. If the alarm goes off, the car would make a lot of noise, and attract attention.
So before opening the door, the thieves need the hood open to disconnect the speaker, or remove a battery terminal, etc.
The open-door switch can be a simple push button switch similar to the door switches, placed on the front panel next to the hood-lock connected (in parallel) to the door switches.
Adding the ‘Open door’ switch under the hood has two benefits. If your hood is left open mistakenly, the car will show the car door open light on, and you won’t run in to the misfortune of the hood of the car fling open while driving.
In reference to the article, if someone tries to open the hood to disconnect the battery, or the alarm speaker wires, the siren sounds and panics the thief, thus at least helping save the car.
I must add, nothing is a sure-shot anti theft device. Given enough time, or ample opportunity, everything can be broken into. The idea of anti-theft devices is to shock and panic or just take too much time to open that the thief would go to the next best option.
Cheers!