How To Prevent Car Theft

car wheel locks No matter what anyone tells you about how to prevent car theft, there is no magic lock or device that will perfectly prevent a professional gang of car thieves from stealing your car 100% of the time.

Fortunately the average car thief is no professional – he’s an opportunistic, lazy criminal looking for a quick, easy and risk-free ticket to a stolen ride.

The simple truth is that in order to prevent your car from being stolen you only need to make it harder and more risky to steal than the next car down the block.

There are four zones or ‘layers’ of anti theft protection when considering how to prevent car theft that will help you think about what sort of anti-theft device to use on your car.

How To Prevent Car Theft – First, Use Common Sense!

Just a little bit of forethought and common sense will prevent car theft by the most unskilled and opportunistic thieves. If you want to know how to prevent car theft start with removing your keys from the ignition, even if you are just stopping for a short period of time. Spend a little time watching shows like ‘Bait Car‘ and you’ll see time and time again how preventing car theft is a matter of removing the opportunity. Leaving your keys dangling from the ignition is chumming the water for thieving sharks. Lock your doors. Close your car windows. Park in a well lit area, or under a street lamp whenever possible. Park in line of sight of residential windows. But common sense only goes so far…

Use A Warning Device as a Second Layer Deterrent

If you’ve parked your car in a well lit area in line of sight with windows or doors where there are people living or working, an audible alarm can have it’s uses. But the harsh truth is that nobody pays attention to audible car alarms anymore! When was the last time you heard a car alarm and made the effort to find out where the noise was coming from? If you are wondering how to prevent car theft and are thinking that ‘getting an alarm’ will do it, think again. Yes, a car alarm has it’s place. It can’t hurt. But a car alarm offers no physical deterrent when considering how to prevent car theft. Same with window etching, micro dot marking, theft deterrent decals or other visual car theft deterrents.

Physical Immobilizer Devices – Now We’re Talking How To Prevent Car Theft!

A physical car immobilizing device is the number one way to prevent a car thief from bypassing your ignition and hot-wiring your vehicle, or just from jamming a screwdriver into your ignition system, starting your car and driving away. Many of the most popular cars stolen by thieves (like mid 90’s Hondas) are stolen this way.

One form of physical immobilizer device is a computer chip in the ignition key. This will prevent the screwdriver method from working. Many newer vehicles also incorporate shift locks and steering wheel locks that function in response to the chip in the key. But even this type of immobilizer device doesn’t go far enough.

The biggest challenge of how to prevent car theft is well known by many luxury car owners: Professionals who use sophisticated gear—including electronics that can intercept or replicate key codes, and flatbed trucks to pluck cars off a street or lot. Professional car thieves who target luxury cars often intend to export the vehicles, after changing the vehicle identification numbers and swapping out onboard computers. One of the simplest ways to steal a car this way is to use brute force on the steering wheel and the shift lock and just push the vehicle or tow it to a safe place for the thieves to process it.

Only a physical immobilizer that prevents the car from actually being moved, such as one of our car wheel boots or car wheel locks can physically prevent car theft. Not only are our wheel immobilizers easy to carry in your car, install and remove but they are also a powerful visual deterrent to car thieves and a real, physical car theft deterrent!

Sure, car thieves who REALLY wanted to steal your California Immobilizer equipped car could come prepared with a plasma cutting torch to cut through the high-tensile steel of your car wheel lock, or use a car scissor jack to brute force the immobilizer lock. We’re not going to tell you that ANY lock is 100% foolproof.

But we do know that when it comes to how to prevent car theft our immobilizer devices WORK in the REAL WORLD to prevent your car from being stolen.