How can I protect my car from thieves?

Question

Item in my car have been stolen. ($400 so far). I am an audio enthusiast and I drive a '94 Civic. What are the various alternatives to prevent theft? I want to buy a gun, but can't conceal it? I want to buy a chip that could go on a pet and put it in my subwoofer enclosure and amplifier. ; )
Post script, I like being a show-off.

Answer 1

Get a good alarm that pages, put anti theft sickers like the ones that come with a viper alarm, and anti theft leds. Or you can get an alarm that will take a photo of the thief and send it to your remote pager. Use technology to your advantage, to protect your toys. And yeah the chip sounds good too. But the whole thing is to make it an undesireable job for a thief, to prevent windows from even getting broken in the first place. Also you can google tamper proof screws and bolt everything down, and disconnect any trunk release so only your alarm remote or key can open the trunk.

Answer 2

A good system and a great system are quite different things. A shitty system is almost worthless in the ghetto as most people have learned to ignore car alarms. To save your wheels there is only one sure method: put lock nuts on all bolts. Thieves use socket wrenches which they hammer onto lock nuts in order to turn them off. When a car has one lock nut per wheel, a thief just needs to bring 4 cheap sockets and a hammer. However, if you replace all lug nuts with locks, they will need between 12-20 sockets depending on the number of lugs on your car. This is a huge deterrent. An alarm system that goes off only when the car is breached (opened hood, trunk. opened door window, or jacked up) is key. An alarm that just goes off from a load vehicle going by or from being bumped is worthless as it will only annoy the locals and peg your car as a cheaply alarmed vehicle. The flashing light on the dash board indicating an alarm is worth far more than the actual buzzer as most thieves can get into and out of a car quite quickly, the biggest deterrent is convincing them that your car is not worth it, not in trying to bring attention. Nobody is going to stop them. Putting all items of value out of site is huge. A thief will consider risking an alarm if there is a clear value item inside. However if they are going to risk getting caught by the police (alarm going off) and there is no sure value item inside they will often opt against it. They can always find a better mark somewhere. Finally, the suggestion of a cut off switch is dead on. Install a toggle switch under the dash which interrupts power to the ignition. When turned off, this switch will override all power and prevent the car from being hot wired. As a result, they can break in and seriously mess up your dashboard/steering column. But you will always retain the car. Having a Honda is the worst decision you can make, as these cars are easy to steal. Easy to tear down, and easy to make money off of for parts. You already have a target on your car and each item of value you add increases that. Put stereo equipment in non-obvious places (leave the stock system in the dash and put the $1000 in the trunk (remote operated). You can also put a fake wall between the stereo and the trunk so that if someone does get into the trunk, they can't see it. A thief will never have enough time to thoroughly check your car over, only to look in the most obvious places.

Answer 3

I think there are portable sound systems you can just take out of your car whenever you want. Other than that, get an alarm. While jogging the other morning I came across 2 guys flashing a flashlight into a parked Honda, a lot of cars on a nearby street had their windows busted out and stuff stolen a couple of weeks back, these 2 guys took off running as soon as they saw me, then drove off. I hope they die.

Answer 4

If a thief sees it and wants it, then he will get it. There's nothing you can do really. The best thing is to not let him see it or know it is there.

Stereos with the removable face plates may help. Alarm systems will also help some.

If you can hide the stereo and use a remote control, then the thief wouldn't be able to see it. If he doesn't know it's there, then he'll hit some other car. good luck.

Answer 5

if u lock ur doors ur windows r gona get broken.. hmm hondas r some real e z target knowin they got the trunk release hanle inside.. nothin u can do.. like guy said if they want it they gona get it.. less than 15sec to steal a cd player even with alarm..

Answer 6

Damn that was My cousin and I. We were about to steal that Honda's stereo but damn. why did you have to come.

lol. jp.

Humm... well just will have to buy some bullet proof windows. hopefully your car has an alarm.

Answer 7

By keeping it in your closed locked garage.

Answer 8

move to a safer neighborhood?

Answer 9

Lock the doors, moron.