David '96 993

That is exactly why I now have a daily driver that I don't worry about and good insurance. I was tired of worrying about my car, whether theft, door dings, or intentional damage (keying etc...).

Years ago I did have my truck stolen in front of my house (in a good neighborhood). It turned out to be a pretty good experience though... It was an old Chevy S-10 Blazer with 240k miles and in need of work. It even needed gas. It was my beater car. When I went out to go to work I saw that my truck was missing.... I go in the house and tell my wife "heh honey, some moron stole my peice of sh_t car, the joke is on them". I would have had a really hard time selling that car if I needed to. My friends thought that I hired someone to steal that car

cobalt

Yeah, the cops won't dust for finger prints.

Back in 1989 I had my jeep cherokee stolen out of my driveway with hundreds of dollars in CD's in the back. When the thieves found the remote to my Garage and found my SC sitting inside they decided to steel all my tools, air compressor etc and tried steeling the Porsche by using my Golf clubs to break the window. Lucky for me they could not get it started. But it still cost thousands in damage.

When I pointed out the perfect hand print on the clean black paint, the cops said it would do no good and refused to bother dusting. They claimed since it was on the outside of the vehicle that the prints could have come from anyone leaning on the car and therefore was not useable. What a crock.

Glad to here your car is somewhat safe, I guess its time to buy a truck to drive to Home Depot. I personally wouldn't drive any nice car to these places. If they don't steel it someone will destroy it, nobody seems to appreciate a fine automobile the way the used to.

EZRider

I have to concur the best defense against car theft in "super market lots" is to use a beater. Fortunately I moved to upstate New York where this type of criminal activity are no where as bad. I used to live in Brooklyn So I can tell the difference. Also the cops here are much more professional and considerate.

kary993

tjangi,
I know exactly how you feel and I am sorry you have had to have this experience. It is amazing when the police explain why they are not going to do their job, though I understand there are so many criminals it is hard to catch them all, but one begins to wonder maybe that is why there are so many criminals, they never actual try to catch them!

Hope everything gets repaired to your satisfaction so you can get back to enjoying your car.

akolodesh

Sorry to hear of your troubles. I have has a few experiences with car break-ins (luckily none in the 993). In each case the police refused to dust for prints - makes me sick.

tjangi, here is a story that might make you feel a bit better:

about a year ago one of my buddies was working from home when he saw a Mercedes parked in front of his driveway. He went out to see if there was a problem and saw the a guy in his 996 trying to get it started. To make a long story short, after he gave the guy the beat down of a lifetime, he took the guy's keys, tied him the wheel of the Mercedes and called the cops. The most amazing thing is that the cops actually gave him a thumbs up when they got there (the guy had a pretty long record from what I understand). So occasionally these scumbags do get what they deserve.

dmbgamer

Do all 993s come with the kill switch?

David in LA

Are you referring to the immobilizer? IIRC all 1996+ 993s came with it, as well as some late build 1995 cars

Joe S.

Bummer about your experince. At least they did not get the car. I have had experinces with breakins, vandalism and an attemp the steal one of my vehicles. Just once would I like to catch one of these punks and give him some payback for all the previous incidents. That really sucks about the cop's attitude and not doing their full job. I also saw where they were putting out cars as bait to be stolen, rigged with video, GPS tracking & kill switches. One police department added their own touch. Once the car doors locked the 'Bad Boys' song from Cops started playing. The look on the thieves face was priceless!

ljugete

I too am sorry to here about your situation, but at least you still have the car. Install a locking ignition cover to hopefully keep this from being pulled out (Performance Products Catalog).

Those NJ PD are a joke. They would rather give out tickets and eat donuts than go after these punks! I know there are very good Policemen but there's never one around (almost) when you really need them (We need more like Officer Serpico & Detective Dirty Harry on the streets)!

Good Luck!

P.S.: Can the kill switch be retrofitted on an earlier 993, 964?

Watch My 6

tjangi,

Sorry to hear about your incident; that totally sucks and I sympathize with you...

I agree with a few other posters is that the best defense sometimes is to use a 'beater' vehicle for certain circumstances. I bought an older SUV in great shape for less than what it cost you in damage that I use for those instances when I don't want to worry about any of my 'non-beater' vehicles.

In the Bay Area, parking is often a nightmare and I sometimes have to search long and hard for the 'perfect' spot. Unfortunately, in the quest to avoid dings, scratches, and dents, it often meant parking further away from the beaten path while uncomfortably accepting the much lesser risk of theft. Finally, I got fed up with it, bought the beater and have had peace of mind ever since. Now we use it to go to the grocery store, Home Depot, taking our dog to the beach, teaching the kids to drive, etc. IMVHO, it's been worth every penny!

That being said, my C4S and X5 are certainly not relegated to being 'garage queens'; they still get quite a healthy workout to keep 'em in shape

Cheers and good fortune,

Chuck A.

There is no revenue generated for the State by catching car thieves. So why bother?

The cops would much rather pull you over in your Porsche and give you an expensive ticket, then catch a guy trying to steal that same Porsche.

Rick Lee

True, but as was proven when Giuliani was Mayor of NYC, prosecuting every small crime tends to reduce the number of big crimes too. I also saw that show on the hidden cameras in Dayton, OH with the bait cars. Most of the guys they caught turned out to also have outstanding warrants or guns and/or drugs when they checked them out. So a few minutes of dusting for prints and running it through the computer could have a huge payoff. There's a gang of very brazen bank robbers on the loose here in DC right now and they steal a getaway car before each robbery and then torch it afterwards. I bet the DC cops won't bother dusting for prints on a stolen/recovered car case, but it just could be the break they need in nabbing the bank robbers too.

tjangi

tks all for the comments. from now on i will seriously consider driving my 1991 9000 saab with 178 k miles for these errands.

i just hope that the porsche bodyshop can succeed in repairing the damages without any traces, i will keep you posted of the outcome.

cheers...

Kurt R

I hope everything turns out OK with your car, and I really don't want to make light of this but I can just picture the first episode of CSI:NJ
"Looks like a print here" - "Never mind that, it's not important"
"Are you going to dust for prints?" "No - that's powdered sugar on my hands"

p_carfan

tjangi -

Dude I feel your pain......in '87 I had my cherry '83 coupe stolen stripped and burned. The week before, I had the transmission rebuilt, regeared, new clutch,ect......The top end was rebuilt, the heads were bench flowed + bigger valves. They pulled the engine and transaxle as one piece probably took 20 or so min. and burnt the rest. One of the real pissers was they didn't bother to take the tires ( new set on the day before) burned with the car. I still carry the sieral number of that motor in my wallet.






To this day I belive it was someone who worked at that shop or was freinds, who knew what work had been done.

Good Luck and Take Care........BTW The police tried to blame me and we got sideways, thats another story.