Any good ideas ...

[chr1s]

for immobilising my neighbours' Clio overnight ?

My neighbours' daughter had her bag stolen last night, complete with car keys, house keys, identification (with address) and bank cards ! Her step-dad has the spare car key, and he's not back until tomorrow evening, so right now she can't open the car to move it or disable it.

She has someone coming tomorrow with a view to changing locks, but she needs to keep the car safe until then. The front door of the house can be dead-locked, so that should be alright.
The police wouldn't even take details and issue a crime number, so it may be difficult to claim if the car is stolen using the key !

I have put the front of the car on axle stands, so the front wheels are off the ground, but there's not much more I could do. She's trying to get the owners of the cars parked in front and behind to park very close and block the car in, but they are both out at the moment.
Does anyone have any other ideas ?

If a locksmith can open it and defeat the steering lock then we could push it into their garage, or if we had a suitable trolley to lift the front off the ground we could push it round (with a few people to guide it) but this isn't an option tonight.

 

[AndyRKett]

Can you reach any of the electrical plugs at the bottom of the engine and unplug them. Crank sensor or anything similar.

Unbolt the engine earth strap if reachable somewhere under the battery area.

Probably a few thinks under the car you can disconnect.

Feed a chain of bike lock through the wheel and around the suspension arms and padlock in place

 

[portland_bill]

With it on stands, take those wheels off and lock them in the garage. Doubtful the thieves will bring a couple of spare wheels with them.
Remove the battery and put that in the garage.
Leave a note in the car asking the thieves to leave the keys. Worth a try?

 

[werdna]

With it on stands, take those wheels off and lock them in the garage. Doubtful the thieves will bring a couple of spare wheels with them.
Remove the battery and put that in the garage.
Leave a note in the car asking the thieves to leave the keys. Worth a try?

Wouldn't the wheels have lock nuts on them ? Perhaps remove other nuts and leave a message under the wiper blades to say wheels unsafe ?

 

[StevenRB45]

If it's an insurance job then the insurance company may well cover secure storage overnight as it's in their interest. A lot of policies with key and lock cover should provide this.

 

[chr1s]

Thanks for the replies.
The car was still there this morning !

If they haven't sorted lock changes today, then they will have the spare key tonight and can move the car into their garage.
I'll let them worry about whether it is enough to get the ECU to not recognise the stolen key's immobiliser circuit, or whether they need to change the lock barrels.

 

[portland_bill]

Wouldn't the wheels have lock nuts on them ? Perhaps remove other nuts and leave a message under the wiper blades to say wheels unsafe ?

We were trying to prevent the car being stolen, not the wheels. Removing a few nuts but leaving the wheels on doesn't achieve that, whereas removing the wheels tends to immobilise the car quite well.

On the thought of removing wheels, last year there were roadworks on the Oxford Southern Ring Road. On one stretch there were three floodlight units. These are a small trailer unit, containing either a generator or battery pack, an extending mast with floodlights on top. As an anti-theft measure, one wheel was removed from each. After a couple of days one unit went missing, the thieves having taken a wheel from one of the others. After that all the wheels were removed. The guys seemed better at building roads.

 

[werdna]

I was assuming that the lock nut socket was inside the car and if they were unable to open the car they couldn't take the wheels off without it ?

 

[Liquid Knight]

I was about to say I have a wheel clamp you can borrow but you're in Cardiff and the thread is three days old.

I used to use immobiliser battery terminals in my Mini's I'm pretty sure you can still get them.