What is it with these little dicks in Sheffield that are stealing cars and car stereo's to feed their dole money or drug habbits, its seriously NOT on!

Get up this morning to go do the weekly shop with my mum to find her passenger window smashed up and her CD player stolen, the car parked right outside our house for christ sake!

None of our neighbours heard or saw anything, not that that surprises me with our estate :? but now my mums got to folk out to get a new stereo fitted (well, pay her insurance access), and with it being a new car (a Ford Focus Zetec) she can only get it from the dealers because its molded and welded to the dashboard...

the whole point of those types of stereo's is to stop them being stolen aint it? lol... but seriously why is car crime so big? the cops wern't bothered at all, wont send anyone out to look cus apperently "there's no point", only had the car about 7 weeks, my mum saved for quite a while to buy herself a new car, nice to know we aren't entitled to new stuff in this city without some theifing git wanting to earn themselves some dosh!

It should have had a pop off front shouldn't it? (even if its just a couple of buttons?), bad luck though, there is nothing you can do unless you have got a garage or a good alarm.

There was a thread on these forums about Focus cars and their vulnerability to CD player theft. Quite a few cars have been broken into recently.

IIRC all Focus audio equipment uses the same key panel, from the cheapest tape player to the most expensive CD system, so it makes stealing them more worthwhile as a key panel from a tape player will fit a CD player.

You can buy the pop off fronts on ebay for dirt cheap, along with decoders to work out the 10 digit code to re-enable it after the power has been disabled from it... bloody stupid if you ask me!

we also found out that the car doesn't have an alarm, just an imobilizer :? it has electric everything, highest spec zetec, but no alarm?? apperently according to insurance company and police most new cars don't have alarms as standard because companys see theres no point to them as theifs are usually in and out in a few seconds :( the gits!

at least if it had an alarm you could have a chance to run outside naked and beat the sh*t out of them!

Some nasty little low-life has damaged your car and been in it and the police don't seem to be very bothered.? This happened to me and I wanted the flying squad on the case or at the very least for them to check for fingerprints but unfortunately not. Then when you watch the police at work type programmes you see them arresting people with dozens of offenses for car crime and yet nothing seems to be done to the nasty little hooligans, I really do start to despair.

On the front page of the times the other day it said that the police in britain are among the worst in europe- how very true!!!

whoops - posted under wrong username...

Not only do the police completely not care, if the car's found vaguely intact they also charge you 105 quid when you go and pick it up for the priviledge of them having found it and taken it to their depot.

I could be wrong but i thought the £105 is for the recovery company/ garage.

I think a lot of the police probably feel as frustrated as well but somewhere along the line the 'do-gooders' have managed to make societies low-lifes into 'poor, dis-advantaged, educationally challenged victims' I'm sorry but that is just the bigest load of twaddle around.
I was watching 'Road Wars' and the police chased and caught four youths in a stolen car, none of the youths could be charged with anything major as the police hadn't seen who was driving. Surely that's what fingerprints are for or am I missing something?

Whoops, that post was me not IanR, browser had me logged in as the wrong person without me noticing.

On the receipt I got from the garage it said "statutory fees collected on behalf of South Yorkshire Police Authority" and "receipt issued on behalf of Police Authority", they were kind enough to only start charging for storage until after receipt of the notification letter. So I guess the money could go to the garage, at the time I thought it was just the police charging for their services (the fact of being faced with that when I got to the garage with no previous warning from them was a bit of a shock anyway...).

I got my car broken into while I was out in the Peak district, the police were called AND arrived and stayed til they had had the cctv checked and we got ourselves sorted. They also came out the next day to fingerprint the car (ok so they dusted the wrong bits, but they tried). They even rang a few weeks later to check we had got everything sorted and to let us know they had not had any success finding the thieving little ***s (that wasn't a surprise)!!!
Maybe I was lucky, or maybe Derbyshire police routinely do a better job, but i was pleasantly surprised by their efforts.

lucky you, no CCTV round here on our council estate :( obviously we need to hurry up and get a driveway done and a camera fitted!

you know the worst thing about all this? I only just passed my driving test yesterday and was SOOOO looking forward to being able to drive the car on my own for the first time, but now its gonna be days before its repaired...

I really think somebody "upstairs" doesn't want me to drive! lol

Xafier - Don't let your Mum take it to fords for a replacement, as it'll just get done again.

Make sure she gets a radio with a detachable front, and that she takes it out of the car at night at least.

We had ours nicked last April. Thieving b*****ds have tried twice since to nick it thinking we'd just leave the detachable part - basically all the buttons/display etc.... somewhere hiddden in the car.

She can get the window fixed same day - insurance will pay for it except for the excess. Autoglas in town is the one they usually recommend you go to. You pay excess and they claim the rest from insurance bods.

Police came last time we had our fiesta broken into and they pretty much know who did it, but not got enough evidence to prosecute (we disturbed them and heard one of their names, but too dark to get a description).

It takes them seconds to break in and it's not noisy so doubt you'd hear them. Was sure fluke OH did last time.

One other point - to anyone thinking of buying a focus or fiesta, ask the dealership to fit a different radio when negotiating with them.

Focus/Fiesta radio's are higly nickable as they fit into different cars, are good quality and a single unit.

Originally posted by Scottandandy
On the front page of the times the other day it said that the police in britain are among the worst in europe- how very true!!!

I get the feeling that being a copper is a bit of a thankless task much of the time.

Seems, no matter how good a job they do, when things get to court, so many crimes go relatively unpunished, and their hard work put into catching the swine is in vain.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if they said it wasn't worth the bother to come out to investigate a stolen car stereo.
Because it really probably isnt.

When/if they get to court the real crooks get them off the charges by saying "oh the poor under priveliged soul only did it to feed his drug addiction, or "he has a pregnant girl friend who will be lost if he goes to prison" he's a good boy really your honour.

Who are the real crooks ? Lawyers that's who. :rant:

Thanks for your comments I’m seriously thinking of just putting in a cheap radio so I have something to listen to while I am driving but will be of no interest to a car thief. :thumbsup:

Auto glass man told me that this kind of theft is very common in Leeds at the moment and that I was lucky to not have my passenger air bag stolen as this is the latest target for care thieves at the moment.

Worst bit is the guys who last broke in have been sent to prison - fat lot that did!

I have a suggestion -

Fit an expensive looking CD player in your car but wire it up to the battery so that the bile that tries to steal it gets a shock and goes home crying to his mama.

And I can guarantee, the police will be around in less than two minutes to arrest you...,