A buddy of mine in santa barbara Cali has a 996 turbo with a failed or failing hydraulic system, he left the wing up as a temp solution. He parked outback his restaurant yesterday and came back to his spoiler stolen. Now just to see how long it would take to undo mine. Literally 45 seconds. It took about 5 minutes by hand. So my question is this, how likely is this theft to be completely random?

 

Not random at all, you would still most likely need the special tool to get it off quickly.

 

The special tool is likely not necessary. I fabbed one in a few minutes, but when you line up the hole in the outer barrel with the hole in the inner barrel, a hex key or other blunt-ended tool would most likely release it. The fact there's no tension on the ram -- in the case of a fixed spoiler wing -- makes it super easy.

Condolences to your buddy on the theft. Fortunately, Turbo wings come up pretty frequently on eBay.

 

Hard to imagine that was a crime of opportunity. Someone knew the car was parked there regularly. That would be a real pisser.

 

I would be completely pissed - funny how no one thought a guy walking across a parking lot with a spoiler was 'normal'...

 

You would think the people interested in "acquiring" a Turbo spoiler are small in number, I'm actually surprised someone would steal one. Wheels, yes...but a spoiler with very limited application?

 

If there were drugs involved, nothing would surprise me; we caught a meth head breaking into our offices on HD CCTV - he was easily identifiable and was caught quickly.

What I was at a complete loss to explain was why did he only took a fax, a set of overalls and two sets of mismatched boots - and not the $1k in petty cash, computers, big monitors etc. that are littered all over our office.

I suppose if if ain't bolted down....

Sorry, I stand corrected - even IF it is bolted down, fair shakes to a druggie...

 

No doubt. Still, this takes some specialized knowledge regarding removal. Or, big b**ls and a pair of channel locks.

 

Oh I think there are plenty of people who would love to bolt the wing to an attachment on the back of their car. It would look better than this one:

 

It did happened in California.

 

Good one. Looks like you could raise the front end of that Saturn by stepping on the exhaust.

 

Being a statistician, the OP's question about random...Not likely. This is assignable or special ( as defined by Shewhart and Deming).

 

so is his car a "Touring" model now?

 

That's what I thought, I'd imagine he/she/it would paint the thing as there aren't very many forest/moss green 996 turbos lol.

 

Good point.