This happened to my neighbor this morning....

flhrci

flhrci

Final Approach
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Groveport, OH
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David
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Fancy pickup truck. Right outside my front window. Police were here for about 30 minutes or so. Small town, 4500 residents.
 
Meth is a hell of a drug
 
Isn't it easier, and more profitable, to steal the whole truck?

(one reason guys like me and @denverpilot drive "well broken in" vehicles :D I don't have any of mine insured for theft and don't lose any sleep at night worrying about it.)
 
GRG55 said:
Isn't it easier, and more profitable, to steal the whole truck?
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And leave the wheels behind?

A buddy of mine, years ago, came out of his apartment and noticed his pickup was missing the passenger side door. Someone must have needed it more than he did.
 
Same apartment complex as me within maybe 500ft last week:

j1nGb4s.jpg
 
Oh, and another reason I leave all my cars stock these days. No fancy bling to steal...
 
GRG55 said:
Isn't it easier, and more profitable, to steal the whole truck?
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Much easier to fence the non-serialized parts.

Steering wheels with airbags, enngine control units, doors, trunklids are all easy to sell and difficult to trace.

(one reason guys like me and @denverpilotdrive "well broken in" vehicles :D I don't have any of mine insured for theft and don't lose any sleep at night worrying about it.)
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Old Accords and Silverados are some of the more commonly stolen vehicles. Lots of marketable parts.
 
GRG55 said:
Isn't it easier, and more profitable, to steal the whole truck?
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When you just steal things like the wheels it's much easier to resell them quickly for cash and be out of it quickly and without anyone finding you. No serial numbers or VINs to check.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
I think the cinder blocks make it easier to steal the stuff quickly.
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Right, the thieves don't care. My fiance's studio was broken into last month. They just kept throwing a big rock at different windows until one shattered (they broke three big plate glass windows). They then stole the cash register drawer by completely ripping out the terminal and destroying it and the printer. $2,000 worth of damage and they made off with about $5.00 in loose change. She now leaves the drawers open, so it can be clearly seen that there is nothing in there.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
When you just steal things like the wheels it's much easier to resell them quickly for cash and be out of it quickly and without anyone finding you. No serial numbers or VINs to check.
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I take it you know this from experience?! Lol
Just kidding
 
I've heard truck tailgates are also a common item to steal. Takes 30 seconds and no tools to remove, is easily 50-60 pounds of steel (or aluminum) that can easily scrapped for a few bucks, or sold whole for several hundred.
 
John221us said:
Right, the thieves don't care. My fiance's studio was broken into last month. They just kept throwing a big rock at different windows until one shattered (they broke three big plate glass windows). They then stole the cash register drawer by completely ripping out the terminal and destroying it and the printer. $2,000 worth of damage and they made off with about $5.00 in loose change. She now leaves the drawers open, so it can be clearly seen that there is nothing in there.
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CC268 said:
I take it you know this from experience?! Lol
Just kidding
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Back in college I made the mistake of leaving my '82 Jaguar XJ-S that had been heavily customized on the street by the shop where I was a mechanic (for whatever reason I was leaving it there but driving my mom's Volvo back and forth, I forget the reason). Well one day as I drove up I saw the hazard lights blinking on it and knew instantly it'd been broken into. The thieves smashed the passenger side window (that side was facing a park). I had done a lot of work on that car, custom making a dashboard for it as well as speaker/subwoofer enclosures in the back, and put in aftermarket gauges. They just ripped all of it out, destroyed the dash work I had done. They even stole the coolant gauge - which was a mechanical unit which doesn't work if you separate it from the line going to the engine (that line is filled with fluid to make the needle move).

The value of the items they stole was no more than $500 most, and they probably couldn't have gotten more than about $100 for what they stole. It cost me significantly more to replace since I had to buy new gauges, new radio, new speakers, and then I had to buy the materials and spend the time to rebuild the dashboard and enclosures that I had done. Since I worked at a Jag shop I was able to take a window from one of our parts cars for free (boss let me have it).

But, whoever did that didn't care one bit the effort I'd put in or the money I'd spent.

Dan Thomas said:
A jack has only so much travel. Without the blocks, they can't lower the truck enough to release the jack.
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Exactly.
 
overdrive148 said:
Same apartment complex as me within maybe 500ft last week
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Any chance that's Cinnamon Park Apartments in Arlington across from Veterans Park? I spent a couple months there a few years ago and it looks darn similar.
 
In HS, there were two brothers that lived next to me. They bought an old (GMC maybe) pickup to rebuild. This was late 70's, so the truck itself might have been 50's. They were twins, a year older that me so we didn't really know each other in school, but I'd hang out with them once in a while. They worked at least a year to get that truck running and were rightly proud of everything they had done and they traded off days for driving it. One night it was stolen from the parking lot where one of them worked.

About a week later it was recovered. Windows were broken out, the windshield had bullet holes in it, door panels and bed side panels had bullet holes and shotgun blast damage. The front end was all bent up from whatever it had been driven over. Some people are just dumbasses.

It had been towed to their house. One of the brothers was going to drive it over to a shop to straighten out the front end a little bit. I rode along. It was at most 2 miles, and we stayed on a back road. A cop pulled us over anyway, we hadn't gotten more than a couple blocks. He looked everything over, checked ID and registration, and said, "The reason I stopped you was because you have a cracked windshield", and let us go.

Good times.
 
Happened to my son once. He turned wrenches during the summers when he was in college. First week he worked at the dealership he came out to go home and his truck was on jack stands with the wheels in the bed and they weren't small. A little welcome to the shop prank. Lol.
 
Years ago, I walked outside and saw my new car looking like that. It is easier to steal the tires using blocks and it is easier to sell or use the wheels and tires than to dispose of the car, unless you are in that business.

Maybe it was someone in the business to sell locking wheel nuts. That was the first thing I bought when I replaced the wheels and tires.
 
Matthew said:
It had been towed to their house. One of the brothers was going to drive it over to a shop to straighten out the front end a little bit. I rode along. It was at most 2 miles, and we stayed on a back road. A cop pulled us over anyway, we hadn't gotten more than a couple blocks. He looked everything over, checked ID and registration, and said, "The reason I stopped you was because you have a cracked windshield", and let us go.
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I was gonna joke that the cops in the small town will certainly drop everything and give no tickets until they’ve solved the wheel theft crime, bring out the CSI van, take some prints, put ten cops on the case... I mean, that’s what the cop shows on TV do, right? LOL.

Nah, they’ll be out handing out tickets to the people just trying to get the repairs done on the bullet-ridden carcass of the vehicle that was stolen and shot up, last week. Hahahaha.

Never saw any serious effort put into burglary investigations, ever, when I worked for the Sheriff’s department, but nobody ever missed their stint sitting on the side of I-70 handing out tickets every day.

I could set my watch by what time each deputy would call dispatch saying their milepost number and had all their favorite milepost numbers memorized. :)

At least on the night shift the constant ticket trolling did a little good. I don’t think there was a night where they didn’t bring in at least one driver so drunk they could hardly walk. Day shift was just revenue generation.
 
Matthew said:
In HS, there were two brothers that lived next to me. They bought an old (GMC maybe) pickup to rebuild. This was late 70's, so the truck itself might have been 50's. They were twins, a year older that me so we didn't really know each other in school, but I'd hang out with them once in a while. They worked at least a year to get that truck running and were rightly proud of everything they had done and they traded off days for driving it. One night it was stolen from the parking lot where one of them worked.

About a week later it was recovered. Windows were broken out, the windshield had bullet holes in it, door panels and bed side panels had bullet holes and shotgun blast damage. The front end was all bent up from whatever it had been driven over. Some people are just dumbasses.

It had been towed to their house. One of the brothers was going to drive it over to a shop to straighten out the front end a little bit. I rode along. It was at most 2 miles, and we stayed on a back road. A cop pulled us over anyway, we hadn't gotten more than a couple blocks. He looked everything over, checked ID and registration, and said, "The reason I stopped you was because you have a cracked windshield", and let us go.

Good times.
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A relative lived in a not so great neighborhood. One of his neighbors had a late 80s Suburban that got stolen. The truck was recovered a few months later. It'd been rattle can spray painted black. Inside it was evidence that the guy who stole it had just been driving it around - it even had his dirty laundry, I guess he'd been planning on going to the laundromat. I forget what was wrong with it that had gotten it found, but I think it was something along the lines of "ran out of gas." The thief wasn't found with it.

Said relative also had a late 80s Suburban which then got stolen one night from out front of his house. It was never recovered, at least not that I'm aware of.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
I think the cinder blocks make it easier to steal the stuff quickly.
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The cinder blocks make it easier to keep their jacks.
Edit: oops, @Dan Thomas beat me to it!

Tell him to check to see if his registration is gone...the buggers up here steal that too, so that they can keep a reference of which vehicles are about to get brand new wheels/tires thanks to insurance. Then they come back and steal them again.
 
Little sister had the third row seat stolen out of her Suburban. The thieves broke out a back window, without realizing the back doors were unlocked, to get it.
 
A crew hit on of the Chevy dealerships in my city for about 50 tire/rim sets. Expensive night
 
midwestpa24 said:
I've heard truck tailgates are also a common item to steal. Takes 30 seconds and no tools to remove, is easily 50-60 pounds of steel (or aluminum) that can easily scrapped for a few bucks, or sold whole for several hundred.
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Ford tailgates with the camera built in are very popular targets, to replace with a new one you have to order almost every part individually! It’s around $4,000 painted!
 
JOhnH said:
Maybe it was someone in the business to sell locking wheel nuts. That was the first thing I bought when I replaced the wheels and tires.
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This doesn't look like your typical methhead loser smashjob. The cinderblocks came on the back of a pickup and under a tonneau cover. Battery powered tools, battery powered jacks and a professional looking uniform shirt that says 'tire service' on the back.
 
Just simpler and quicker to steal the entire vehicle most of the time.

Back in my racing days we noticed a car, late 70s Camaro, on the side of the road missing wheels, seats, A/C compressor and carburetor. It sat there for a month, so I asked a police buddy of mine about it. I gave him the VIN and it did not come back as stolen.

So that car was removed from the road and into our shop where we made a race car out of it.
 
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