If you park your stuff in a bad neighborhood, leave all the windows down, the perps will probably avoid it thinking it's a sting operation.

ahh.. have you actually tested this theory? I suggest you do so! A thorough and rigerous testing procedure, preferably with your car and stereo, should be carried out.

I expect the complete analysis would be enthralling!

In some quarter a century I own cars (and several years more I drove parent's) I have been testing this theory by never locking the car for perhaps ten years. I got things stolen from the car twice (once a first-aid kit, once a blanket; the police found bad boys and girls and returned what was left of goods in both occasions, even though I did not bother to report the treft (and got informally reprimaded for that by the police)), both from the locked car. Moreover, the car was so expertly broken into as to leave it virtually undamaged (they managed to insert a wire between the glass and its frame and manipulate somehow door locking mechanism). No - wrong - once, when I parked my ancient Citroen 2CV - unlockable for all practical purposes - with roof down near a highschool, somebody stole a bag of Mars bars from the seat .

More seriously, thieves in Croatia nowadays mostly steal whole cars, preferably better models of Mercedes, Audi, BMW and occasional VW. Sometimes they use one of those trucks with a crane used to remove cars parked on location disrupting or endangering traffic. Most of them seem to end in neighboring Bosnia and Herzegovina ('Dear tourists, come to B&H - your cars are already here!') My Twingo has remote keyless entry with engine immobilizer (though just IR, not RF, without chalenge-response protocol), so I have terminated the experiment .

Cheers!


Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Zagreb, Croatia
Q#5196, MkII#80000376, 18GB green