We still had 2 trucks stolen from the driveway...locked
our son's car was broken into multiple times

Our Honda Accord EX was stolen 4 times..the same damned car

and we lived in a safe neighborhood

Nothing is safe anywhere if someone else is determined to have it

Then, one day, a CHP officer knocked on my door and asked me if I owned a 1966 MG Midget. "I do," I answered and looked in the driveway. It wasn't there. So, the CHP guy said, it was stolen, but the thief didn't get far. "It's in the road about two blocks from here."

I told him I'd go get it, and thanks very much.

That MG was very, very finicky about being started cold. If you didn't manage the manual choke just so, the carbs would flood and the engine would die fairly quickly. So, that's what happened to my car thief. He abandoned my MG and stole a Chevy pickup near where he abandoned it, according to the CHP officer.

I walked down the street, started my MG and drove it home. That was the last time I left the keys in a car's ignition. So, now I have to lock my car, too. What a world we live in, eh.

I wish I had that MG Midget back. I sold it not long after than incident, being very careful to explain its cold-start quirks to the new owner.

Wherever we are, the car locks automatically.

One time we needed to get into the car was a few years ago at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival. My husband dropped the keys unknowingly as we walked away from the car as were headed towards the Front Gate.

As we returned to the car, he looked inside his pouch for his car keys. Luckily he was able to call On Star. They located the car and unlocked it for us. The spare set were in the car in a secret place. The next day, we went to the Information Booth for Closing Day and someone had turned them in.

There are still honest people around.

they were stunned at our obsession with closing windows, doors and car doors. They lock nothing, but we are paranoid with good cause.

Where I lived before we didn't even have a key for the house!! Rural area. Everything locked up tight now...
m

Non-stop security

I know, I know...people leave their 40K,50K,60K+++ cars in the driveway and put all the useless junk in the garage. I've done it too in the past.

We lived in NM and large damaging hail was predicted.. We busted ASS to clear enough space to park our new car inside..Left the older one outside to fend for itself..



Hail was teensy... we moved car back outside and redistributed the junk

It's so nice to go out and not have 10" of snow on top of it. You can clear the driveway, and then back your nice clean car out.

We keep our cars in the garage all the time. Never had anything stolen or broken into, either.

Always have, for 47 years. Never been broken into. Not even when I lived in Los Angeles.

Battery thefts from cars are really common in Minnesota. I mean, when it's 20 degrees below zero and your car won't start and you're late to work at your crummy job...stealing a neighbor's car battery is just a natural thing, I guess.

It doesn't usually happen in good weather, though.

I just put a new battery in my car in January. I'd hate to have to spend another $120 so soon.

battery needs to be all dirty and corroded too. a nice crack in the case is a good touch, too.

I wanna move to where you live when the end of the world arrives. Looks like it'll take 50 years or so for the conflagration to reach your neighborhood.

Oh, well. I mean, it's not like locking the car is some sort of big deal. Ours still needs the key to lock it up. No fancy key fobs on a base model KIA Soul. Stick the key in and turn it clockwise and all the doors lock. Turn it counterclockwise twice and they all unlock. No-brainer.

and a 2015 Nissan Versa that doesn't even have remote door open/lock. Manual windows amuse my grandkids.

Electric windows always fail on the coldest day of the winter around here, and always with the window down.

These days, even the cheapest cars have all the bells and whistles. More stuff to break, it seems to me.

You know what I want? A 1962 Ford Falcon Ranchero with a stick shift. No electronics. No computer. No nothing. Trouble is, a nice one is now about $15,000. Any that are around get restored or hot-rodded by old farts like me. I just want a stock one with a decent paint job.

Oh, well...

If someone decides to put enough 'ass' into it, the handle can ne cranked hard enough to destroy the linkage or break the glass. So I've heard.

It has manual windows, a 5 speed trans, and it's Roll Tide Red. I'm about to get the AC fixed due to the heat here in Alabama. It has a bedliner with notches for 2x4s so 4x8 sheets of plywood, siding, or sheet rock can be carried easily.

Not quite the Falcon/Ranchero, but I used to own a '69 Falcon with a 4 speed and a six cylinder, so I get the appeal of the simplicity.

It was the easiest car to work on I've ever owned. Today's cars, with all the electronics and computers, are almost impossible for owners to maintain for themselves. Now, a 1960-65 Falcon is not a clean-running vehicle, so that's a real problem environmentally. But, If something broke, you could fix it in your driveway. I know, because I often did. Clutch slipping? Well, no big deal. About four hours and you're back on the road. The manual transmission was light enough to pull and handle by hand while lying under the car on jack stands.

Need a valve job? The cylinder head takes less than an hour to remove and take to the machine shop to grind the valves. Another hour to reassemble and you're back on the road. Everything about the economy cars of those days was simple, cheap, and repairable by anyone with basic mechanic's skills.

Nothing sold since the 90s fits that category any longer. In many ways, that's too bad, although today's cars are far more reliable, non-polluting, and the things will start and run in any weather, every time.

It's nostalgia, really, and not at all practical, but nostalgia is a nice thing to imagine.

The big orange and black ones with the lights.

Don't lock your car around here and you are going to have someone going through your stuff at one in the morning. It's a trend around here. Doesn't matter the neighborhood. I called the cops on two guys doing it not long ago. Was out front early in the morning and they were just walking down the street testing door handles. At one house one of them went to the side yard and tested the side garage door.

Locking your car when you are not in it is always a smart move.

because of the position of the garage opening. Vehicles outside the garage are locked.

My husband's wallet got stolen out of his car WAY back when we lived in a little village--about 250 people on a good day--and that was almost 20 years ago. Now, it's even worse. We had a pro union yard sign torn up and thrown around our yard just a couple months ago, and whoever did it had to come up into the yard by about 30 feet, up next to my house, to get at it. THAT is not cool, and if we'd caught them I doubt it would have gone well.

Also, and not to put too fine a point on this, if you leave your car unlocked people can leave things in your car that you don't want. Last thing I want to do is get in my car and find out somebody took a dump, pissed in it, or vomited. Yah, it can happen, and we are still out front as being Labor and progressives in a very strongly conservative town with a LOT of redneck assholes. WHY invite the hassle?

I lock my doors to the house--if I'm home or not--and that's not going to change.

YES. Lock your doors and your cars.


Laura

If someone wants to steal your car or what is in it they will just break a window. I almost never lock my car except at night in my driveway.

All they got was a few empty soda cans and a case full of home copied CDRs. (Any music CDs we buy, I burn a couple of copies - one for the car, one for our CD changer. The original goes into storage.) We had to pay not quite the deductible on our insurance to replace the window - but my husband got back 50% from his employer since it was parked in their lot while he was working.

You never lock a convertible but my would. One day my wife and I drove to the store with the top down. We started walking to the store when my wife turned around and went back to the car. She locked the doors.

I saw a 50-something guy in a pretty red Miata with the top down get out of the car in a parking lot and push the lock button on the key fob. I guess it's habit, but it made me laugh. But, why is it always some balding 50-year-old man driving red Miatas? Hmm...

Now, if they can afford something like a Ferrari, that's another story, because $$$.

My size 13 foot wouldn't fit in it. Shame, its a pretty car, and affordable.

Thankfully I don't keep anything valuable in my car that they could steal. But still...

he had left the keys in the vehicle, he received a ticket.

the wall of an apartment. He was fortunate not to be charged in a personal injury case.

Granted this was almost 20 years ago, newly married and dead broke. The old factory radio died some years back so I bought a $20 one to replace it from a store. Then had a friend of mine help me install it.

Some schmuck stole it....after they broke my window and cracked the passenger side mirror. The glass replacement was way more than the hunk of junk radio.

Landlord put up a security camera in the next couple of days.

If you leave nothing of value inside, it's better to leave the car unlocked, so they don't smash the windows to find out there's nothing in it.

Happened to me twice before learning to make sure there is nothing in it, and to leave it unlocked.

..I esp like it during the winter when my house in not even accessible by car and theres so much snow I can track their asses anywhere they walk. And I have 5 dogs...2 are terriers who bark at leaves....the other 3 are Goldens who lounge around and invite burglars in.


And I have a Glock with a laser site and a Lady S/W.....and security cams all around that I can access from my phone.


...Im so sorry about your car (you may want to get some security cams).

from the interior. Left my car unlocked, they got my sunglasses (cheapies, no loss) but they could have cleaned out the tools in the trunk ($500+) Lucky dog, that's me.🛠️

My husband laughed so good he got a hairball up.

Funny AND useful story!!

I don't leave anything of value in my car.

In the course of my lifetime, the only times my car has been broken into was when it was locked. Twice, thieves smashed the window in order to find nothing of value in my car.

For that reason, I leave my car unlocked, so that if they want to have a look around inside, they don't have to smash the window to get in.

that's some serious stuff. Yeah, I lived in NY long enough to always lock my car from now on.

It's a bit scary how awful thieves can be.

Several years ago I bought a new car and one night at about 1:00 am I heard a commotion in my driveway, looked out the window and saw several people around my car. I call the police and by the time they got there they had removed 3 tires and rims by lifting the car and pulling the wheels off. They rolled the tires up the street and the cops never caught them.

Maybe somebody got tired of listening to the thing and disconnected the battery.

Someone wanted the battery.

Actually, I think I know who did it now. On our dog walk, there was a Miata down the street at a house that always has a variety of people hanging around. The Miata had a battery charger hooked up to it.

So, I stopped and talked to the guy who actually lives there and said, "You should probably lock your cars. Someone tried to steal my battery last night. Better safe than sorry." The guy thanked me for letting him know. Message delivered.

Lucky for me, my car battery is really hard to remove. You have to remove a brace and a couple of covers to get to the lower clamp that holds the battery in place. Too much work, so the would-be thief gave up.

The padlock on my US Army-issue footlocker comes to mind. In basic training at Fort Polk in 1968, I inadvertently left my footlocker unlocked while I went to chow one morning. When I returned to the barracks, the entire contents of my footlocker had been dumped on the floor. As I re-packed the footlocker, Drill Sergeant Brewton appeared. He locked my heels, and proceeded to chew on my sorry buck-private ass - up one side and down the other - for my egregious "security violation."

Later, in Army flight school at Fort Wolters, the ante was upped, considerably. A security violation, like my unlocked footlocker in basic training, could easily get you washed out of flight school for "administrative" causes. When I got to my Vietnam assignment in the super-secret Army Security Agency, previous security directives seemed like kindergarden.

I learned my lesson well! Lock your locks, and burn your docs. All of them.

We learned about locks and burning in the USAF Security Service, too.

It would have gotten the criminal on video, and you could have shared it on social media and given it to the police.