DionR
Well-Known Member
The recent problems with theft (including the guy I know who lost his Demon last week) has gotten me to thinking about how to make it difficult to steal my Duster. Stuff like taking the rotor out of the distributor and things like that. I know the new cars have checks to make sure you can't just cross a couple of wires, but the older cars don't have a good option for that (that I am aware of). Anybody have any creative ideas?
One that I thought about was wiring in one of Painless Wiring's Phantom Key kit. Put the push button in a nondescript place and leave the column alone so it looks like that is still how you start the car. Pretty sure if you don't have the key fob, the button doesn't light up, so in theory the thief doesn't know it is there, so he works on the ignition switch instead. Wire the switch in the column to a relay that kills all power to the car and sounds the horn so that when he tries to hot wire the car, or start it with the switch because he smashed the column, all he does is disable it and set off an alarm to tell anyone close that he is trying to steal it.
Another thought is set up a cheap cell phone that you could call and trace if it does get stolen. Not sure if that is even possible, probably watching too many Burn Notices. But if it was possible, maybe hide it in the headliner, wired to power so it doesn't run down and set it up on silent/no vibrate/auto answer on mute so you can listen to the thieves, too. Can you track a cellphone without being a government agent?
Of course the first thing you need is some way to discourage the thief to begin with, like take the shifter with you so he can't get it out of park or something.
Thoughts?
One that I thought about was wiring in one of Painless Wiring's Phantom Key kit. Put the push button in a nondescript place and leave the column alone so it looks like that is still how you start the car. Pretty sure if you don't have the key fob, the button doesn't light up, so in theory the thief doesn't know it is there, so he works on the ignition switch instead. Wire the switch in the column to a relay that kills all power to the car and sounds the horn so that when he tries to hot wire the car, or start it with the switch because he smashed the column, all he does is disable it and set off an alarm to tell anyone close that he is trying to steal it.
Another thought is set up a cheap cell phone that you could call and trace if it does get stolen. Not sure if that is even possible, probably watching too many Burn Notices. But if it was possible, maybe hide it in the headliner, wired to power so it doesn't run down and set it up on silent/no vibrate/auto answer on mute so you can listen to the thieves, too. Can you track a cellphone without being a government agent?
Of course the first thing you need is some way to discourage the thief to begin with, like take the shifter with you so he can't get it out of park or something.
Thoughts?