Security precautions

Spent the weekend slating some idiotic parking in our nice quiet street. Got home tonite to discover the car was abandoned by car thieves who moved it from infront of a garage they intended to rob. Looks like the bandits had their eye on an brand new Audi S3 from inside a locked garage. Stolen to order I guess. Its a bit unsettling though that they will go to those measures and just lift a car with all the so called factory fitted security. Now I'm worried. My C2 is locked away evey night and the garage is alarmed. The up and over door has no additional locks or security and offers little protection against the determined thief. The only security on the car in addition to factory fitted alarm and immobiliser is a tracker which obviously is no deterrant. Anyone fitted additional security or bought the physical barriers/posts that you bury into the garage floor? Car crime is thankfully quite rare round here but there are a lot of nice cars so its not surprising it had to happen sooner or later. But I hate the thought of someone lifting her without a fight.

Hi Neil, Its a sad world we live in. But Porsches tend to be left alone now due to most having trackers and other security devices. But you are doing better than most by having an alarmed garage etc. I usually dump my 911 on the pavement when i can't be bothered to garage it. Many of us are becoming complacent and your experience is the biggest wake up call we need. I sometimes get followed on the way home and i keep driving past my house until they've gone[ ] Thats how they track you. Si

Garage doors are quite easy for a determined thief to open, a great and cheap security improvement to up and over garage doors is to drill a 10mm hole through the bottom lip of the garage door into the floor at either side. I use a couple of 8mm allen keys which i just drop in, very effective at stopping the door being opened, if the lock/wire mechanism is bypassed![ ]

Unfortunatey there is only so much you can do. Had my house broken into in January this year while we were asleep upstairs to get my M3 keys. When the police came round he said that the very best thief detterent was a dog, and that they very, very rarely see houses with dogs burgled. When I get my 911 she will live on the drive with keys hidden away and my new dog in the kitchen!

The cheapest and sensible, with snow swiftly approaching, safety and security 'device' could be a car cover. Just make sure that it really covers anything which identifies your car - i.e. covers the wheel centres if the Porsche badge/logo is fitted. If a steering wheel lock/cover and a Tracker are added, IMO you have as much protection as you could hope for. In my professional experience, casual/amateur car thieves are not interested in anything which draws attention to their activies and holds them up such as removing a cover or cutting away a steering-wheel lock, and jsut want to get in and away asap. Of course, this will not stop any professional car thief who usually steals to order - although the Tracker device is not easy to find or immobilise.

Does everyone just rely on factory fitted security? No aftermarket immobilisers or alarms?? Tempted by these for a little extra security http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/NEW-Draper-Security-Single-Garage-Door-Defender_W0QQitemZ6014461118QQcategoryZ98855QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem or http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Garage-security-locks-An-ideal-Xmas-gift-for-hubby_W0QQitemZ5055777291QQcategoryZ50659QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem better than nothing??

In this day and age, I think it is incredibly difficult to steal a car such as the 996 which has an immobiliser. The only real way is to break into the person's house and steal the keys. That is why insurance companies will increasingly ask where in the house you store your keys. The kitchen drawer, or hanging near the door, being the wrong answers! So I dont know how much help all this increased security will be for you....Once it's in the garage it will already be hard for them to steal as it will be quite difficult to load it onto a low-loading truck (which is becoming an increasingly popular method of stealing cars to order).

So where should you keep the keys??

Under the mat, with all the other keys, of course! [ ]

Well being a "victim" of this very thing I can only give you my experiences. We used to keep our keys in a bowl in the kitchen and in the week prior to the burglary I came home to find a side gate open to the back of the house (where you can see through the kithen window). Now keep them in a drawer in a dresser in the hallway (at least 6ft from the front door). Reasons for this as instructed by the police are as follows. If the keys can't be seen in the first place it makes the thieves much slower (and therefore less attractive proposition). They cannot be reached directly though any opening. As the front door is often the most secure and most public they will have to go through the house from room to room to find them (setting the house alarm off). Some people take the keys to bed with them but if someone REALLY wants your car, do you want them coming upstairs to get them? It is only metal at the end of the day! The police had a LOT of scary tales to tell regarding performance car thefts as thiefs now have to break in to get keys with current standard immobilisers etc (as previously mentioned). Consequently my feeling is that if they want it that badly they can have it, I just want to make it as difficult as possible in the first place so they don't bother - hence my house is alarmed every night now. Scum[ ]

Eeek we're scaring each other here lol. Good point about hiding the keys tho'. Dont want to encourage them to come thru the house searching. We sleep with the alarm protecting the downstairs and garage. Not a bad area just seemed to be a good habit to get into. I think I'm going to add a couple of locks to the garage door just for peace of mind but as you rightly say, if they are determined ..... As mine is not new and has 85K on the clock maybe I'm not as big a target as others? Time will tell ....

Interesting responses. My more criminally minded clients tell me that keeping the keys of an 'attractive' car where they can easily be found makes their lives so much easier. Keep keys somewhere you can easily find them; not in bedroom or kitchen drawers, not on a hall table or in an open tray, not in jacket pockets or on hooks in a hallway especially if they are visible from the front door/letter-box. IMO, making the life of an amateur car thief more diffficult can/need consist of little more than factory fitted alarm/immobiliser, a steering wheel [Disk] lock, a Tracker device, and a car cover. Getting rid of these items takes time, energy and makes noise which tends to attract witnesses. This is something the amateur car thief will want to avoid if at all possible. If the car is locked in a garage, then this should reduce the chances of theft. Of course, a professional car thief, stealing to order, is unlikely to be so easily deterred, but, being fundamentally lazy, will want the quietest possible life with the least risk of being caught. Perhaps a Porsche-owning police officer can give further guidance... Finally, if a determined car thief threatens you, just hand over the keys - your life is worth more than any car - and you are likely to have it covered by insurance. If it is any consolation, there are very, very few instances of 'car jacking' or threats being made to steal cars. All car thieves know that, upon conviction, a Judge will throw the proverbial book at them if a theft is accompanied by violence or a threat of violence: robbery carries up to life imprisonment.

I had a work contact who took delivery of a fairly hot Scooby. A few weeks later he woke on hearing a noise and before he could get out of the bedroom had three blokes in front of him and an iron bar in his face. I asked him what he did - his reply, "sh*t myself and gave them the keys off the bedside table". He had a wife in the room and two young kids next door. The car was later found damaged. The insurance company said it was repairable, but he threatened to take all his company's business, (quite a hefty lump of premium) away if they tried to give it back. He now runs an Audi diesel and won't have anything like that again. Gets you thinking, doesn't it? For information, the alarm company 'Clifford' have a range of alarms with 'blackjack' on them. Basically, you have to enter a code into a discreet switch when the car is started or whenever the door has been opened with the engine running. If you don't, the alarm waits a short time after the car starts moving and then flashes the brake lights a few times before cutting the engine. The code has to be entered to get it to start again. If you're unlucky enough to be carjacked, all you do is let them take it and it'll conk out a safe distance from you. It'll also stop them getting away with the car if they take the keys from the house. Regards

I know someone who has a "dummy" set of keys in plain view (no battery in the blipper) his theory being if people break in for the keys, by the time they have got in, taken the keys gone back outside & realised the keys dont operate the car he will be awake & armed with his baseball bat tripping his emergency alarm. Its got some credibility to it, but keys in plain view will attract thiefs in the first place I guess. A dog gets my vote. We have a black Lab that kicks off anytime he hears odd noises outside, lots of barking & growling, enough to put anyone off (even though he is a softy really!)

Beyond all you can do to keep the keys safe, we have fitted Rhino Posts inside the garage - my logic being if they're outside the garage it's a clue there's something nice inside! Rhino Post website: http://www.rhinosecurity.co.uk/spb.htm - istr they cost around £350 each fitted. While anyone is trying to contend with the posts, the alarm is going off with two 128db sirens which are hidden within the garage - you feel physically nausious if you're in their when they go off [ ] p