stealling ford trucks??????

[bullseye]

a buddy of was at lunch yesterday, in a very good part of jackson,ms,, somebody stole his 2008 power-stroke f-250 in front of a good rstaurant. last summer, an employee had the same truck stolen at another resturant, as well. there has been a big rash of stealing ford trucks in the jackson area for a while,, are they simply that easy to steal???? it appears the insurance companies would tune ford engineers up somewhat,, all of the trucks i;m familiar with [3] were 4-wheel drive power-stroke lariats,, i'd assume the same criteria for theft would apply to gas burners, but these were high-dollar trucks. i can't help but wonder if the chevrolets are as easy to steal as fords, , as i drive a z-71. there was one chevy stolen here last summer in the city,, onstar tracked him for JPD,, ended up officers shot him dead. what do any of you guys know about this,, are these trucks that easy to steal???? i drive to jackson each day,, but i work at a large hospital, and park in the hospital ad-min gated parking lot,, out of sight from the public,, guess i'm kinda safe during the day.----- also,, these guys had pistols in their consoles,, more stolen guns on the street.....if you drive a ford,,watch it closlely,,might do a disappearing act...

[Littlelebowski]

a buddy of was at lunch yesterday, in a very good part of jackson,ms,, somebody stole his 2008 power-stroke f-250 in front of a good rstaurant. last summer, an employee had the same truck stolen at another resturant, as well. there has been a big rash of stealing ford trucks in the jackson area for a while,, are they simply that easy to steal???? it appears the insurance companies would tune ford engineers up somewhat,, all of the trucks i;m familiar with [3] were 4-wheel drive power-stroke lariats,, i'd assume the same criteria for theft would apply to gas burners, but these were high-dollar trucks. i can't help but wonder if the chevrolets are as easy to steal as fords, , as i drive a z-71. there was one chevy stolen here last summer in the city,, onstar tracked him for JPD,, ended up officers shot him dead. what do any of you guys know about this,, are these trucks that easy to steal???? i drive to jackson each day,, but i work at a large hospital, and park in the hospital ad-min gated parking lot,, out of sight from the public,, guess i'm kinda safe during the day.----- also,, these guys had pistols in their consoles,, more stolen guns on the street.....if you drive a ford,,watch it closlely,,might do a disappearing act...

Longest run on sentence on this site?

[JackOSU]

Don't worry I got sick trying to figure out where all the commas came from.

Seriously though I doubt it's just a Ford thing...;)

[tracker722]

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[QuietShootr]

why are Fords easier to steal?

(I don't see any reason not to discuss it here. Anyone who would do it probably already knows how.)

[tracker722]

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[SeriousStudent]

I investigated a stolen Harley last year and saw the guy on a security camera review walk up to a FatBoy and in about 30 seconds have the bike started and out. He easily defeated the fork lock in about 5 seconds, the rest of the time was just getting it started.

It's taken me longer than 30 seconds to get a Harley started before, and I owned the sumbitch and had the key.......

(Okay, you KNEW someone was going to say it. :D )

[tracker722]

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[SeriousStudent]

Yer welcome! :D

The cold-blooded beyotch was one of the old "bowling ball bikes", back when AMF owned H-D. It was harder to start than a Jaguar.

The only time it stopped leaking oil was when it was empty....sigh.

But I was stationed in SoCal then, and the cuties loved it. That was all that mattered.

[11Bravo]

It is a Ford thing.
They need replacement parts for their own rundown POS trucks. :D

[buckshot1220]

Aside from whether or not their easier to break into or not, diesels are a hot commodity right now. Don't know which years were stolen (care to say?), but the 7.3's are hitting high mileage where overhauls/rebuilds may be necessary. Other parts common to only the diesel like lift pump, turbo, injectors also checkout and are rather costly. The 6.0 that was around for a year or two had a multitude of problems. The made huge torque, but many had problems and as so parts are needed for those. The 6.4 is still pretty new and I doubt there is a huge market for used parts just yet. Anyone who has ever owned/worked on diesels before knows that parts and labor are not cheap. Most likely these trucks got cut up for parts.

[loupav]

May I ask the good members of M4C how Tacomas are in terms of "steal-ability?"

I know a lot of people who own/drive Toyota Tacos.

[Belmont31R]

Why I have lojack on my Z.....

[drrufo]

May I ask the good members of M4C how Tacomas are in terms of "steal-ability?

It isn't that they are easy to steal, it is how easy is it to steal the cat convertors.

My neighbor( ex cop) was buying the smaller of the two while owning the large one. I don't really know their names. It took two days to prep his new one, so he kept the trade in.
The morning of the swap he started the old truck and it sounded like a motorboat, some one had slid under and skil sawed off the convertors. It was the third one reported that morning in a three block area.
Cost him his deductible, 3500 bucks more for the insurance company. They probably got 50 bucks each for the tubes.
His contact at Mount Sac College said they had 15 stolen in the parking lot one night, says a lot for their security.

what next,VW Beetle flower vases?

[perna]

$3500+ for the ENTIRE exhaust does not make sense, considering some was left over there is no way it should have cost that much. I guess if he went to a dealer it would have cost that much but any muffler shop could have done it way cheaper.

[markdh720]

For what it's worth in this thread:
1. I used to work for a Toyota dealer's parts/service department. Toyota's trucks (pickups and SUVs) were always getting the spare wheels and cat converters ripped off. If you have one, bike locks will stop a lot of thieves from taking the spare wheel at least.

2. In Chicago, it seems like late model Chevy's are stolen and used in crimes a lot in "lower economic status" neighborhoods.

3. From my experiences, LOJACK is garbage. I've seen LOJACK find more cars that were already recovered than cars that were still hot. OnStar has has a good track record though. They have been annoyingly tenacious at helping our PD recover a bunch of vehicles.

[ohiorifleman]

One question about On-Star. Will they still help you if you aren't subscribed to the service?

[ForTehNguyen]

these Ford/Chevy diesel trucks are hot targets for thieves, be careful

[Left Sig]

Aside from whether or not their easier to break into or not, diesels are a hot commodity right now. Don't know which years were stolen (care to say?), but the 7.3's are hitting high mileage where overhauls/rebuilds may be necessary. Other parts common to only the diesel like lift pump, turbo, injectors also checkout and are rather costly. The 6.0 that was around for a year or two had a multitude of problems. The made huge torque, but many had problems and as so parts are needed for those. The 6.4 is still pretty new and I doubt there is a huge market for used parts just yet. Anyone who has ever owned/worked on diesels before knows that parts and labor are not cheap. Most likely these trucks got cut up for parts.

I agree with this mostly. The 6.0L was in production for 4 years - beginning of 2003 through the end of 2006. The 6.4L started production first working day in January 2007. I know because I used to work for Navistar at the Indy plant where they were built, and managed a lot of the retool work, as well as the launch from the maintenance side.

Problems with the 6.0L were primarily injectors, due to a quality issue at the injector supplier. But there were other issues - notably the high pressure oil pump and turbo as you said. By the 2005/2006 model year, they were pretty solid though.

Stealing the trucks for parts is very likely. But don't underestimate the need for Mexican drug cartels to have powerful 4x4 trucks. Lot of these are probably going south...

[drrufo]

Quote: I guess if he went to a dealer it would have cost that much but any muffler shop could have done it way cheaper.

This is the Peoples Republic of Kalifornia, it may not be possible to get them from a muffler shop. I got a quote of 1900 bucks for the convertor in my 2001 Volvo from my local repair shop. Yes it was a dealer part, I assume it was a dealer only item. CARB has a funny way of making expensive rules.

[AirTrafficControl]

A quick pull of the starter fuse under the hood can eliminate someone trying to steal it. Unless they have a tow truck. It's easy to do look in the manual...ATC

[tracker722]

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[84B20]

I don't understand why people don't think about alarm systems when they buy a vehicle. For about $150.00 I had a Clifford BlackJax5 installed in my F-150. It is an anti hijack alarm. If someone doesn't enter the code the truck starts to sound the horn after 20 seconds and about 20 seconds later the engine shuts off. It gives the owner time to get to a safe distance before the vehicle stops. Then you can do what is necessary, whatever that may be, I'll leave it to your discretion.

[rjacobs]

They can have my truck if they want it, thats why I have insurance. Its just a truck, I can get another one.

[84B20]

They can have my truck if they want it, thats why I have insurance. Its just a truck, I can get another one.

It isn't the truck I'm worried about. I have a hand gun safe in it and if I happen to have my firearm locked in it (New Mexico at present does not allow firearms in restaurants that serve liquor) I don't want that getting away, as one example. And no, in case someone asks, I wouldn’t be drink when I am carrying.

[buckshot1220]

Quote: I guess if he went to a dealer it would have cost that much but any muffler shop could have done it way cheaper.

This is the Peoples Republic of Kalifornia, it may not be possible to get them from a muffler shop. I got a quote of 1900 bucks for the convertor in my 2001 Volvo from my local repair shop. Yes it was a dealer part, I assume it was a dealer only item. CARB has a funny way of making expensive rules.

At that price wouldn't it be worth it to drive to a dealer in a neighboring state to have it replaced? Even assuming 4+hours drive, make a roadtrip out of it:D How does the state know if it was bad and then replaced or not? Gotta be ways around it.