OK, I have seen several thefts in the NYC area and I feel the need to post this so that some of you can keep your cars, some of the tips are good for saftey wherever you live.

DO:
Use security in layers, alarm, club WITH full steering wheel cover, autolock, hoodlock, pager, etc.

get an alarm - most expensive dosent necessarily mean better
be wary of your alarm installer. Dont get the alarm installed in the area where you live.

go to strauss auto (NYC) and get the steering wheel cover to use with your club. Its only 20 bucks, you cant afford to be without one

park safley.

Use the garages if you need to leave your car in manhattan OR better yet, dont bring it to manhattan at all.

BEWARE of quiet neighborhoods with garages (ex. canarsie, queens, etc..)- someone can steal an unprotected car and slip quietly into a nearby garage. These areas are no more safe than others.

Beware of rainy nights- they are good for stealing cars because there is poor visibility, fewer people outside, and thunderstorms set off alarms. Be careful on rainy nights.

Have your alarm adjusted so that every loud car dosent set it off. If noone pays attention to it when it falses, why would they pay attention in the 5 seconds it takes for thieves to disconnect the battery. Personally I would go without a shock sensor in the city.

Get carjack protection. In nyc where there are people walking all over the goddamn place, it is hard to tell whether the dude walking past your door is just jaywalking, of if he is going to jack you.

Get a kill switch- these are cheap and easy to install, can foil a thief, and if you are carjacked, you can flip a fuel cut switch to make sure they dont get far.

Use a hoodlock! I cant stress this enough, you MUST get one!

Use a car cover. Maybe a bit extreme, but remember, thousands of people may be passing by your ride daily, there is no need to show what you have to those who might want to take it.

DONT:
Leave your car unattended for hours in the street. It just isnt safe. You have to face the facts here, NYC is a dangerous place, if you want saftey you should consider moving.

Dont assume that people will respond to your alarm. Simply put, most new yorkers dont give a ****, or they are too dumb to look out in the seconds your alarm will go off. I would never expect my neighbors to look out before a thief could cut the battery, they wont look unless the alarm is going off for a while, which a good thief will never let happen.

Dont get an alarm with that cheezy siren evreyone has. No one pays attention to them. Have the alarm hooked up to the horn instead, or to both. The louder the better.

Be wary of large public garages at malls. The "no one cares" thing applies here as well, someone can take the car without fear of someone intervening.

Dont depend on someone to call the cops if they see your car being broken into. This depends on what area you are in, but many people want no dealings or contact with the NYPD, so dont depend on them. Also, diffusion of responsibility applies in such a crowded place, heinous crimes have happened here and witnesses have not called the police because they figure someone else will do it, so dont assume that because people see a break-in that they will call the police.

Dont park without your club and cover. Nor 5 hours, not 5 minutes, EVER! Cars without clubs are targets. Use it everytime.

Dont trust the allarm installer who says the alarm he is installing will keep the car from being stolen. Never give your real name and adress to any unfamiliar shop, it never hurts to say you are from long island or from upstate.

Dont let the installer put the alarm brain under the dash. Its a bonehead move, big time, you might as well just give the thief your remote to shut it off. Because of the high volume of cars they install into, they will cut corners and do a 1/2 *** job, watch them carefully.

Dont stop to help other motorists. Sad but true, a student was carjacked and murdered, his body dumped in a brooklyn park about 2 weeks ago. Even if someone has a teg, dont stop, sad but true, it just isnt safe.

Dont think your car is safe in this city, drive 5 minutes and look at the cars, 7 of 10 have sents, dings, bumper damage, etc, all battle scars from NYC. If you want saftey from accidents, theft etc, it may be time to cinsider a move, NYC is a good place to enjoy a restaraunt, play, club etc, but is a very bad place for car enthusiastas.

Enjoy and use wisley!
And watch out for the red light cameras.

 

Its very good advice, thank u. I never ever drove mine into Nyc. I take my daily Toyota Tercel for relaxing comfort purpose because u can't enjoy the city life when your mine always on the car. But now is summer so ny waterway is even more relaxing.
ed lee
Y2K ITR #498

 

 

sup bro.. u done at sbu?

 

yup, got my diploma 2 weeks ago. (late, because the PHI dept phucked it up..

Going to law school at rutgers, I am currently apartment hunting. I was accepted to some schools in the immediate area, but its $$$ and i wanted to keep the teg in my posession.

 

good advice.. im glad i have access to the positive features NYC holds w/o suffering the negatives... (i live in upstate NY). thanks for posting that, ill be sure to remember to look it over next time i drive down.



Alex


[Modified by AVD23, 4:49 AM 8/2/2001]

 

I agree Brinks man.....just to add a few more 2 cents from a NY point of view:

-Don't be under the assumption that parking outdoors on a bright sunny day without checking on your car is safe.....I have friends who have had their rides stolen within 5 minutes that they went into a store or their girls apt...etc....be on the lookout.

-Don't try to be the center of attention. Revving hard and pulling till redline on every street light is not wise. Be cool and drive cool...No need for blowing anything on street lanes...just makes you and your car a center of attention.

-Don't brag about what you have. Braggers usually wind up the weepers.

-If you have enough money to pay for a frankenstein, then you should consider finding a place to pay to store your baby when parked for long durations. I just don't comprehend people parking their cars on the street when they have a garage or when they have money to pay for parking.

 

Where are these hood locks, and how much are they, what do they do(like HOW it locks the hood)

IMO nothing stops someone from taking your car....cept their laziness/lack of preperation....but if you do eveyrthing brinks tells you, i highly doubt anyone would even think about taking your car....but who knows maybe that thought of mind is all they need to take it.

 

You can get one from http://www.jcwhitney.com or http://www.autotoys.com. They run from 30 bucks for cable to 60= for electronic.
There is a cable type and an electronic solenoid type. Cable style requires drilling the firewall. They lock the hood from underneath, you carefully drill the hood and affix the secondary latch they provide.

They may be able to think of taking it, but dont give them the opportunity to do so and get away.

 

There are two common hood locks.

One looks similar to hood pins but rather it functions as a lock.

And the other is a where a cable is ran into the interior and unlocks/locks the hood via switch/key. There are ones that interferes with the stock OE latch mechanism and thus does not allow it to open, or is actually a secondary latch.

Any alarm shop/body shop can do the hood lock for you. So far, I have been gathering information on this. The JC Whitney piece tends to rust and bend very easily. A DEI dealer told me that the DEI hood lock tends to rust as well. Although I believe some chassis grease will prolong the ability to fight rust.

Maxiguard and Alpine both offered electronic hood locks, but I believe they are both discontinued. A shame since it offers great convenience, i.e. you could interface it on one of you aux of your alarm and thus it would only lock when armed. So that you wouldn't always have to fumble to unlock the hood all the time.

 

Hey, Brinks, you in SBU? As in Suny Stony Brook?

Sup man, I go to there to...are you that infamous de-badged red ITR my friend told me once? And I saw you parking outside Rosevelt Quad once, and I went to check it out, it has Buddy Club sideskirts, no sunroof, USDM ITR seats, DC2 VIN, so I assume 99% it's a 97 ITR. The other ITR is the PY one that shows up almost every Thursday night in front of Kelly's Cafeteria, stock with "team integra" on windshield. Which is you?

I drove my ITR down SB several time, I left it overnight at H Quad for like a total of 5 days in the whole semester. And guess what? At the final exam week, both of my corner lights were stolen! And each night that I have to leave it over, I usually gets up at 4am to peepee and run out to the lot real quick to check if my baby is still there. SB sucks with bunch of low-class vandalists.

Anyway for others with concern of car securities....I have alarms with "backup batteries" which means that even if they pull the battery, it's not gonna stop the siren. And I have the conventional 5-ring siren, I cut the wire and left down to the worst sounding two and making it unique, so once my siren is on, and from that nasty sounds, I know it's gotta be mine. Not a pretty thing on a pretty car, but it helps.


[Modified by nEoMuGen, 5:09 AM 8/3/2001]