docdan

Thank you for the share! I appreciate you keeping an eye for it.

docdan

A GPS tile would have been critical in solving this case. I honestly didn't know they existed until a friend told me about them yesterday. Thank you for the advice and I will buy them for both of my cars.

docdan

I'm glad to hear you got your car and trailer back. It would be great if that would happen in this case. And yeah, those Porsche crests are metal and riveted on, and I figure those were the first things they popped off.

I had never heard of "offerup" but I will now keep my eye out on that site. Thanks for the advice!

Xpit77

Bastages I`ll keep an eye out here in Ontario. But my guess is it`s been scrapped.Someone stole a Pro F1600 here a few years a go. They found the race trailer in a field everything intact. Cops figured that the thieves grabbed it thinking it was stock / drag car trailer and had no clue what they stole or where to sell the parts.

TXE36

Day late and a dollar short, I know, but when I got my trailer and was figuring out how to secure it, I came across this:


Most hitch locks don't do well. I ended up with a Rack'em Wheel Lock and a set of locking lug nuts. Trailer came with a pin hitch lock as well.

The bottom line is if they want it bad enough, you really can't stop them. I've made my as much of a pain to steal as I can and it is insured.

I hope you get your property back.

-Mike

cracker

Like someone said, if they want it bad enough, people will steal it. The "hitch" lock is important but doesn't prevent a "pro" from stealing trailers - even large enclosed trailers. They lift it using the chains and lock it down...enough to get it to their safe house - then they deal with the locks (or whatever their intent is).

Tony

mrbill_fl

Sorry to hear this.

Sadly, you can register a trailer as home made in Fla, with a certified scale weight. regardless of vin. & no title is required.

Thieves are using a battery operated circular saw with a metal wheel. goes through anything... even the wheel locks.

I thought those tiles were bluetooth enabled. Wouldn't you be relying on others to have their bluetooth open for the tile to transmit a signal, which is probably unlikely...

does anyone use these? do they require bluetooth permissions on the phone to work?

mmm951

Man, sorry to hear this. I will be looking out in MS for your trailer. In our state any trailer below 5000 gvw does not have to be tagged, over that it has to be tagged and titled.

BTW, that is one sweet trailer. I just dropped off a project car in Wisconsin to get some work done it and had a brain fart while loading up in Mississippi. I got up at four in the morning and was not fully awake and hooked up the enclosed bumper pull. Well, I laid the trailer keys on the bumper of my truck and forgot all about them as it was still dark. After I was on the road for about thirty minutes I decided to do a strap check on the car and it dawned on me I never put the keys back in the truck. I called my friend to back track the lot at my shop because they surely would have fallen off - no luck. So, I had to suck it up the rest of the 850 mile trip and hope everything was fine. It was.

All that said, I had to get into the trailer via locksmith or just cut the locks - I needed to get in. I decided to go the cheaper route and cut the locks. I had the locks off within a couple of minutes. A simple portable grinder can take care of most locks, considering the size of the shank can only be so large. In the end, a trailer can easily be stolen regardless of what type of locks you have on it. When somebody wants to get in or steal something, they will find a way. I am trying to figure out what to do in my situation, especially when I travel and stay overnight.

This occurrence made me realize how easy it is to steal a trailer and it sucks.

TXE36

I just keep my trailer keys on my regular key ring with the truck keys - that way there is no way to leave them behind.

Good insurance coverage is about the only thing you can do. It sucks, but it is what it is. I also never wash the trailer - I want it blending in with all the other trailers in the storage lot. The rattier it looks, the better.

-Mike

jb92563

Keeping an eye out for it in Socal.

You need one of these ball locks.

LuigiVampa

There is almost nothing you can do to prevent a trailer from being stolen. I lost my key the exact lock above over the winter and I cut it off with an abrasive cutting disk. I don't think it took 10 seconds.

I have a gpsandtrack.com unit installed in the guts of my trailer so it is hard to find. The "tile" units are bluetooth and don't have a range beyond a 10 yards or so.

HoBoJoe

How well does the gps and track system work? Seems like a decent deal for 3 years of service.

Gary R.

The TrackR uses CrowdGPS and the coverage is dependent upon a user with it running on his device being near your trailer. Tile is similar but not even as good. The only good solution is to use a true GPS device and software like GPSandTrack units.

LuigiVampa

It works well - you can pull up the location on a map and receive email alerts for status and movement.

There are some limitations. If you want to keep it in active mode it wears the battery down so generally I turn it off when I get it home because it is blocked by the tow vehicle and other stuff. The battery is sealed into the unit so once it is gone you have to send it back.

Since I have left the trailer in hotel parking lots I felt it was important to spend the money on something that actually worked. This works but it is a little pricey.

The crowd source bluetooth unit don't work in my opinion. I had the Tile unit in my luggage and key chain and it couldn't find it from one side of my house to the other. Do you think the fellas in the swamps will be running that app? Nope.

Hope we have a happy ending to this story. I have stickers on my house, trailer and cars inferring that I am armed. I don't know how much of a warning this is to people but I also make sure that some spent brass is visible by my front door. I often take some target practice in my front yard (to the delight of my neighbors!)

Someone here on RL has the tagline - A well armed society is a polite society - or words to that affect. I am a believer.

nxfedlt1

As to theft, I face this issue with boats along the coast and there are systems across the full price spectrum. What I did on the trailer was use the Spot trace device along with another GPS device for redundancy. Won't keep it from getting stolen, but atleast I have a shot at recovering it!