Do people steal metros?
 

Wondering if I should get a security device for my cute new little car.

In Alberta? Doubtful it will be messed with. If it makes you feel better a cheap security system could be set up to prevent the vehicle from being started. Include a back up battery to ensure it will work if the car's battery is disconnected. If you want to go really cheap, put a switch in line with the starter 12v+ wire.

The best security device would be lots of coroplast. Use different colors if you really want to be safe. ;)

There are a lot of "financial combustion" thefts in Alberta when oil prices drop and all the oil sands workers can't make their $1500 a month new diesel pickup payments anymore. But I wouldn't think a Metro would be high on the list, though they are easy to take, and if I was a young hoodlum walking around in the cold in the winter I would rather take a Metro than walk. So anything you can do to make it look like more work than it is worth to take would help. Immobilizer is good, but by the time they figure out they can't take it they have already punched the lock or bent the window frame out on the door. I'd get a cheap club for the wheel, people can get around them, but more likely they will just move on to the next car with nothing in it. Just my 2 cents.

No, only ecomodders want them;)

If you make a kill switch for your engine, like cutting the signal to the injectors or from the cam-/crankshaft position sensor, then you can wire in a second switch as theft protection - install it in a hard to see place and flip it whenever you leave the car.

Three stick of dynamite under the front seat. No which way does that switch go? LOL


A low rated fuse could be added so it would start then quit. This was used on the old cars to to break the 12v to the coil. One side of the switch for normal operation and one side anti theft. Nobody wants a poor running car.

As much as I'd like a kill switch on the fuel injector and a start button, from the threads I saw on here, I don't have the tools or knowledge to do it myself. :S Can you get people to do this for you at a mechanic shop?

When I read this thread all I could think of was a "High Speed Chase" involving a Metro and a Mountie on a bicycle. ;)

regards
Mech

For the price of tools and a few hours of reading, you will be able to do it yourself. Any car electronics place can do it for you if you really don't have the desire to learn how to do it.

Just remove the fuse for the fuel pump if it's easy to reach when the car is parked in an ''unsafe zone''

You could also use that technique on other fuses too!

There's another aproach, a 30-50w siren tucked under passenger seat. Siren will start with a time delay of 5-10sec once the car is started if you don't flip a switch. You'll be sure thief will leave the car there.

Can you point me at what to read? I don't know anything about electronics or diagrams or what wires to cut in my car or what to connect between them. I would like to do it myself, but I also don't want to blow up my car by accident or anything. :D

http://all-funny.info/wp-content/upl...r-security.jpg

I would try something like this!!

lol, I'm just wondering if it would be a good indicator that one has completely failed in life if one found themselves stealing rims off a metro :)

I think a geo metro is at the bottom of the list of vehicles to steel, their value as a stolen car is as scrap ($200) so it would be less risk to steel copper wire, aluminum cans, pretty much anything, if someone is going to steel your geo, they are also going to steel the parking meter that it is parked next to.
People steel cars that have a high demand for parts, after market parts are worth more then stock, people often ask if my civic has an engine swap or any performance parts on it and I often get the feeling that they are wondering if they need to tell their friends to try to steel it if they get the chance, no one races metros, no one swaps engines on them, the people who want them are cheap and have real jobs.

Sadly, sometimes people steal cars just because they need a ride. And in Alberta it gets cooooold, so people would steal whatever is easiest to take. Someone stole one of my beaters once, the police found it outside the liquor store, guess someone needed to get there before it closed! Metro is easy to take, so just make it look like more grief than it is worth to the casual car thief who doesn't want to walk, and you should be fine.

Put a bunch of switchs, gauges, meters all over the dashboard. That'll make anyone think twice: "WTF?? Should this button be pressed, or should it not be pressed?"

Like cfg83's cockpit, for example:
From The Show Off Your Cockpit Thread.

If you add a switch to keep the car from starting I would place it in line with the fuel pump or injectors. The reason for this is if the car does not start at all they might think to look for a switch especially if the electronics some on in the car, if you keep fuel from getting to the engine it will try to turn over but not start like the car ran out of gas.

I'm not sure where the fuel pump fuse is on your car but if it is in the cab then that would make it easy to add a switch.

I do like the "disable the car after they pull out" approach on some levels, the perp would definately not want to stay with the car at that point, though they may be more comfortable with experimenting with the car parked.

Also switches can be hidden in plain sight. I had an el-camino that the blower fan didn't work in a certain position, so I set it up to be the engine kill position. Any of the myriad of buttons on cars (or combination of buttons) with a simple processor can be used to enable/disable other systems in the car.

Seat belt interlock. How many thieves pause to put on the seat belt?

It's already wired to a switch that turns on a light, very easy to add a relay to that circuit.

More over, add an auto lock relay to that, and remove the ability to unlock the doors in a normal fashion from the inside, and you now have a mobile car thief cage.