Thieving scum

Thu Oct 23, 2008 1:16 pm

With hindsight I suppose it was only a matter of time. 6 of my 8 15" BBS centrcaps have been pinched this morning

. I suppose I wouldn't have clipped £20 notes to my wheels and expected them to stay there, but I'm f**king furious none the less.

If I go to the trouble of getting some more, has anyone else found a good way of theft proofing them?

Thu Oct 23, 2008 1:33 pm

you could always sharpen the edge that you hold to turn them

then just use the tool.

Thu Oct 23, 2008 1:39 pm

I siliconed mine on as one was a bit loose! Whilst they are now a bit of a pig to get off when changing wheel etc. I haven't lost any or had any pinched since I did it.

Thu Oct 23, 2008 1:42 pm

One of the previous E30s we had had the centre caps bolted to the wheel!

Certainly weren't going anywhere.

Thu Oct 23, 2008 1:56 pm

How many wheels does your e30 have?!

Thu Oct 23, 2008 2:00 pm

15 last time I counted, (3 cars and spares) though I haven't looked out the window for 5 minutes so maybe they're all gone now, even the bottletops.

Thu Oct 23, 2008 2:50 pm

I can relate to the thieving scum theme. Thankfully my E30 was in the garage but parked on the drive was my 525 sport and some scum bag during the middle of the day nicked one of my back wheels, they even had a tool to undo the locking wheel nut. This caused a few problems as the car has run flat tyres so no spare, they damged the sill in jacking it up and worst of all I couldn't get my 325 out for a weekend blast. Oh and money I had allocated to getting a couple of jobs done on the E30 must now be spent paying my insurance excess.

I know it's not completely releated to E30's but I'll feel your pain.

Thu Oct 23, 2008 3:02 pm

One would be tempted to wire the parked cars to a mains supply

but of course you will find yourself sued by the thieving scumbag when it gets a shock....

Thu Oct 23, 2008 3:08 pm

Farbbm wrote:I can relate to the thieving scum theme. Thankfully my E30 was in the garage but parked on the drive was my 525 sport and some scum bag during the middle of the day nicked one of my back wheels, they even had a tool to undo the locking wheel nut. This caused a few problems as the car has run flat tyres so no spare, they damged the sill in jacking it up and worst of all I couldn't get my 325 out for a weekend blast. Oh and money I had allocated to getting a couple of jobs done on the E30 must now be spent paying my insurance excess.

I know it's not completely releated to E30's but I'll feel your pain.

Bastards - I know my centre caps aren't the end of the world, but whenever something like this happens the whole unfairness of it really gets to me - like why go to the trouble of having nice things when some git will just come along and take what they like, or vandalise it just for the sake of it (I had an arse shaped dent put in the bonnet of a car when I lived in Swansea, and the badges nicked). It's made me think about having a car I just don't give a toss about, coz if someone stole or wrecked one of my e30s I'd be inconsolable - do I really need that to worry about?

Thu Oct 23, 2008 3:34 pm

A previous owner put a cheeky screw through the centre cap, preventing them being unscrewed easily (you need a screwdriver to get them off) which I guess puts off opportunist scum.

Thu Oct 23, 2008 4:14 pm

daimlerman wrote:One would be tempted to wire the parked cars to a mains supply but of course you will find yourself sued by the thieving scumbag when it gets a shock....

Unless you do it properly and use 3 phase

(of course, there's still the scumbag's scummy family to worry about)

Thu Oct 23, 2008 4:22 pm

Morat wrote:
daimlerman wrote:One would be tempted to wire the parked cars to a mains supply but of course you will find yourself sued by the thieving scumbag when it gets a shock....
Unless you do it properly and use 3 phase
(of course, there's still the scumbag's scummy family to worry about)

I would suggest a large dog with big,yellow teeth but you would have to feed the thing every now and then...a diet of thieving scumbag is most likely unhealthy!!

Thu Oct 23, 2008 4:30 pm

Keep an eye on eBay. I bet they crop up soon.

Thu Oct 23, 2008 4:33 pm

Morat wrote:
daimlerman wrote:One would be tempted to wire the parked cars to a mains supply but of course you will find yourself sued by the thieving scumbag when it gets a shock....
Unless you do it properly and use 3 phase
(of course, there's still the scumbag's scummy family to worry about)

somebody my business partner knows did that, had a lockable box in the rear of his transit pickup which was constantly getting broke into, got fed up so he wired it to a street lamp. one less scumbag to worry about but he ended up doing time for manslaughter.

Thu Oct 23, 2008 4:47 pm

Poxy resin them on. That'll hold them. Untill you destroy you wheels when you want the caps off....

Thu Oct 23, 2008 4:59 pm

put anti climb paint on the edge of cap

Thu Oct 23, 2008 5:18 pm

Just get cctv mate but if its on a private drive then nought can be done. Dont wire up the mains, put something simuler to electric fences use, high voltage low ampage!

Thu Oct 23, 2008 5:19 pm

Buy some Alpinas?

Thu Oct 23, 2008 5:47 pm

Balls, sorry to hear this fella. The 'king nerve of some people!
I hate hearing stories like this. Such an inconvenience. Hopefully you'll be able to source some off here at a reasonable rate.

Thu Oct 23, 2008 5:48 pm

B7 wrote:Keep an eye on eBay. I bet they crop up soon.

First thing I did when I noticed they'd gone! What do I do if I see them on there though? Go round and tune them up and then get myself arrested? Presumably the police couldn't do anything unless I could somehow prove they were mine.

Thu Oct 23, 2008 7:42 pm

Guys my idea on this was to drill a hole through the cap into the alloy and fix them with some of these babies...

http://www.screwfix.com/prods/13579/Scr ... %20of%2010

Thu Oct 23, 2008 8:03 pm

zimmer-320i wrote:Just get cctv mate but if its on a private drive then nought can be done. Dont wire up the mains, put something simuler to electric fences use, high voltage low ampage!

Spare ignition coil on a basic frequency generator? anyone who had had a shock form a HT lead will know what im on about, you get no choice, your hand shoots back and usually caltters into somthing hard... And you usually sware at it

Thu Oct 23, 2008 9:09 pm

beardymat wrote:somebody my business partner knows did that, had a lockable box in the rear of his transit pickup which was constantly getting broke into, got fed up so he wired it to a street lamp. one less scumbag to worry about but he ended up doing time for manslaughter.

That was careless - I mean, leaving the body there. In the boot of the car and chucked off a railway bridge. Would have been even better if the scrote was still alive - the last 10 seconds of life to really, really regret thieving.

Fri Oct 24, 2008 12:46 am

My garage was broken into last weekend and they nicked all my housemates' tools, welder, tkm 2-stroke Kart, bikes and other stuff. Police forensics guy came around and suggested that since we studied electronics we could wire up a nasty suprise for their return. If mr Police says it's fine who's to argue

Police completely useless though, we were told to go down to the plod shop the next day with photos and serial numbers of the stuff taken. On arriving there the next day we were told that the case had been filed because the items stolen were not uniquely identifiable (why we were going there in the first place) and because they had no witnesses (which isn't suprising since the only person to turn up just checked a couple of places for fingerprints and left). They were told that our neighbours knew something about it and were given all the serial numbers and pictures clearly identifying most things but they were not interested in reconsidering opening the investigation at all. Although the lady on the desk briefly stopped arguing with her colleague about whether we should be allowed to stand at the desk to be concerned when we explained that the kart was not a safe toy and 0-60 time was quicker than any car she would ever be in, implying the thieves might get hurt extracted some interest. Giving them the crime reference no for two previous break-ins on our premises in the last two weeks got a sympathetic look and some advice to pay halfords to uniquely tag our property with UV marker, so that next time they can ignore the unique serials

Ah vented

Oh yeah and I hate the thieving scum that nicked the stuff too, although I must thank them for leaving my custom CF mountain board, worth more than any other item taken

Fri Oct 24, 2008 1:10 am

Elecblondie wrote:the lady on the desk

I have wondered about police station secretaries, and how they get along in real life, outside of work. The theory of natural selection says that anything as frustratingly useless as them should die at a young age.

Fri Oct 24, 2008 11:25 am

There was clearly a hierarchy of uselessness going on. Some guy was going in to present his documents after some driving offense and was obviously late, the matriarch just laid into him like she was passing judgement. Yelled at us for talking to her subordinate at the desk but was quite happy to tolerate a load of racist comments from some other guy reporting for parole or whatever. At least when we left we knew who was going to have the happier life.