Jimny was broken into - need advice

Sorry to hear that.

Where I live used to be crime central, the whole area, in the 90s I had every car I owned broken in to either to steal or one one occassion to nick the HT leads, nearly every time they disabled the alarm.

I used a variety of locks and ended up with a wheel lock, but I also wired a cut out switch in to an unused button on the dash (e.g. fog lamps or driving lamps). I caught 4 kids in it one morning with a screwdriver in the ignition key and starter motor spinning (they didn't find the cut out). The cut out worked.

Fortunately it seems to have reduced over the last 20 years and I never hear of anyone getting the car broken in to other than to nick fuel or the sat nav.

I would therefore fit an alarm and buy a dash board switch and fit it as a cut out in one of the spare slots (next to the fog lamps).

facade wrote: The OBD theft is often used to steal Fords, especially keyless versions of the Fiesta and Focus. The thief stands outside and pops the drivers window - which doesn't set off the alarm, then reaches in and plugs a laptop into the OBD port. They then read the VIN number, and use a hacked database to defeat the security, open the doors and start the engine.

I suppose they could put a Jimny into key learning mode and get it to recognise any key.

The best deterrent is the Disklok mentioned before- but the makers know it, and it is massively overpriced @£120, keep an eye on ECP and you might get one for a bit less with a discount code.

www.eurocarparts.com/p/disklok-steering-...lver-small-549991210

Fit one, keep the inside tidy and it stops opportunists breaking in.

Thanks I'll look into that today, makes sense about the OBD stuff.

FYI I found this code to work today ICY80 on Eurocarparts, it would save you a whopping £2.40 on a Disklok!

Sorry for any confusion; the rotor arm is on my classic car, its in the distributor.

Not at all, my mistake!

If the loser had undone some bolts, he obviously came with tools. What stopped him I wonder? Were they disturbed during the attempt?

I'm unsure what stopped them, unfortunately I was unaware that it had even taken place until the following morning.

Perhaps a secretly hidden battery isolation switch? Though these can easily be found - anything to slow them down though. Other simple things would be pulling the HT leads off the plugs - but doing this every night and refitting them every time you want to use the car soon becomes a huge PIA.

I think a (slowly) flashing led coupled with some personal attack alarms on the doors would be a cheap solution in the short term. Choose an attack alarm WITHOUT a flashing light - you dont want the retard to find it too quickly and stop it sounding off.
Its a pity Maplins went under - they had loads of components to build these kind of things.

THIS is the type of alarm I have on my outbuilding doors' I've mounted mine onto an aluminium bracket that I made, angled so that the pin gets a direct straight-line pull (thin para-cord). It's very loud and I've accidentally set it off myself when I've forgotten to unhook the line, and its a pig trying to get the pin back in in a hurry.
The only drawback is that you can almost mute the sound by covering your palm over the device, but they'd have to be able to see it or know it was there in order to do that quickly.

Thanks again, I'll have a look into whats going to be best for us, certainly some good food for thought. I really appreciate your's and everyone's help here.

DrRobin wrote: Sorry to hear that.

Where I live used to be crime central, the whole area, in the 90s I had every car I owned broken in to either to steal or one one occassion to nick the HT leads, nearly every time they disabled the alarm.

I used a variety of locks and ended up with a wheel lock, but I also wired a cut out switch in to an unused button on the dash (e.g. fog lamps or driving lamps). I caught 4 kids in it one morning with a screwdriver in the ignition key and starter motor spinning (they didn't find the cut out). The cut out worked.

Fortunately it seems to have reduced over the last 20 years and I never hear of anyone getting the car broken in to other than to nick fuel or the sat nav.

I would therefore fit an alarm and buy a dash board switch and fit it as a cut out in one of the spare slots (next to the fog lamps).

Thanks, sounds like a good idea, do you have any suggestions?

facade wrote: The OBD theft is often used to steal Fords, especially keyless versions of the Fiesta and Focus. The thief stands outside and pops the drivers window - which doesn't set off the alarm, then reaches in and plugs a laptop into the OBD port. They then read the VIN number, and use a hacked database to defeat the security, open the doors and start the engine.

I suppose they could put a Jimny into key learning mode and get it to recognise any key.

The best deterrent is the Disklok mentioned before- but the makers know it, and it is massively overpriced @£120, keep an eye on ECP and you might get one for a bit less with a discount code.

www.eurocarparts.com/p/disklok-steering-...lver-small-549991210

Fit one, keep the inside tidy and it stops opportunists breaking in.

visible deterrents is the way i think. And to park the car either out of way or very visible directly under the street lights if possible.

Amazed if a thief that has the resources to do the OBD choose to hack into a Suzuki when he can steal a valuable car.
If the thief has these skills, he/she should be capable of getting a real job actually.. -In a perfect world...

I think probably the less resourceful thief breaks into a suzuki for the stereo or something visible or that he didnt know that the car cannot be hotwired like the thief that stopped inside the steering column on happybaisakhis car.

No-one seems to have skills anymore

The Ford OBD thefts are easy because you can get the complete kit for a few pounds and it is a few button presses.

The rest of the thievery just involves smashing stuff.

I was watching a video about breaking into houses by snapping the lock in half, which is how they literally break into houses round here. I assume the numpty demonstrating was deliberately slow (Like Parker breaking into the Bank of England in Thunderbirds), because I've seen skilled people pick locks like those in a fraction of the time, without any grunting or loud noises.

Still, the insurance will pay out if there is clear sign of violent entry, if they bump or pick the lock, the insurance would drag their feet claiming it wasn't locked or something.

You Could get a dummy obd port for the ford's you unclipped the original and plugged the dummy in then tucked it up as far as possible then clipped the dummy back in place so the scum bag would get power but nothing else, I know I had one on my Focus St, but had two attempts at the front door on separate occasions one being Christmas day a couple of years ago, but from my outdoor CCTV you can see them looking through the letter box and coming face to face with a cross lab staff who doesn't like being woke up early hence they left swiftly
I'm lucky that my Jimny came with a Thatcham 1 alarm, immobiliser and sensors on the inside.

Not a car related case, but this reminds me of a story when an anti theft protection effort went too far in my country.

There was a guy who was living abroad in Switzerland ( = rich) and his house in his own country was regularly burgled as it was usually vacant. Many other such houses were regularly burgled in the area. No measure to identify or catch the thieves was successful as they were in cooperation with the local police.

So he got fed up with it and booby trapped the entrance door with mines and explosives - I mean the real deal which is used for destruction of infantry forces during a war. It was an illegal war surplus leftover from the Yugoslav wars. He was a commando during the war.

Soon enough, he scored a quadruple kill - the booby trap blasted no less than four thieves to high heavens at once, along with the entrance room in his house. One of them was a high ranking police officer or his brother, can't remember. The owner was chased down by Interpol, but it turned out that the house burgling effectively ceased after that ... he wiped them all out with one single move.

Brilliant! Best thing for those scum - pity it would have been such a quick end to them in my opinion :evil:

Scum like that are a waste of oxygen

I hope I don't need to remind anyone that the use of deadly force to protect personal property is not to be condoned either here on this forum or more generally in the wider world.


I'm not saying scumbags need an easy ride but equally vigilante justice is not the future.

Oh sorry - did I [strike]say[/strike] write that out loud?

Yes you're quite right. Lambert. I don't condone it either but in this instance what was done was done and no doubt the geezer that wiped out this particular group of detestables has had to pay his penance.
Its a similar story to that farmer Tony Martin who, frustrated by the apparent innaction of the police, ended a thiefs carreer with a shotgun for repeatedly breaking into his sheds. Completely wrong I agree, although I can't lose sleep over it, and would rather be satisfied in the knowledge that they'll simply live long and very unhappy lives instead.
Tony Martin didn't get away with it and served three years of a five-year sentence, proving that fighting crime with crime might be effective but isn't right and doesnt pay

I remember as a kid being told that violence solves nothing.....completely wrong of course.... it solves everything!