Right now my 02' Taurus is secure, locked inside my garage. The problem is I plan on moving and where I live it's rare to find an apartment with secure garage parking. Most parking is on the street and if you're lucky you might get a space in an outdoor parking lot at ground level. Carports are also popular here and garages are a very rare find unless you own a house that happens to have one on the off chance.
I plan on moving to "Old Town". It's this part of town that has some historical significance to it. Plenty of 2 or more story buildings of mix use. IOW Buildings with small shops at ground level and apartments, condos or office space on all the above floor. There are no parking garages and in any case most parking is going to be on the street or in a portion of a block that has a small public parking area.
I really do want my car to be safe and so I'm trying to figure out all the ways I can make the car harder to steal. I've been doing my research and the consensus says that if somebody wants your car bad enough than it's theirs.
The car is a 2002 Taurus. My qustions are: What is the computer chip inserted under the dashboard in order to start the car called? Imobilizer? How exactly does it work and are they effective/worth it? Do they shut off the fuel pump or ignition?
The club isn't not very effective from what I hear, what about the other anti-theft device that locks onto either the clutch or the brake? Are those overhyped?
I had a closer look at my car and have found out all sorts of ways the factory car alarm can be defeated. Aparently the ignition key only has a magnet in it! Can you believe it? Only a simple magnet inside the key and Ford calls it an Immobilizer.
The Hood cable can be pulled from the front of the car. All the theif has to do is break away the plastic grill in front of the radiator in order to pull at the cable. Not even that, the theif can probably fish in there with a tool to pull at the cable and open the hood and disconnect the battery to stop the car alarm from sounding. My guess is the siren for this cars alarm does not have it's own self contained battery?
trick to easily defeat the car alarm. One theif stands in front of the hood with wire cutters while the other one breaks the drivers side window and unlatches the hood. The theif with the cutters then cuts the wires to the battery. From there the theif who smashed the window can open the car door without the alarm sounding. From there they can take anything they want out of the car and they can put the car in neutral in order to push it just enough to tow it. Also the car has button locks on the doors, all is needed is a switchblade or a screwdriver to break the locks and unlock the doors. Which could be done instead of breaking the window. I wonder which is more expensive to fix? Probably the broken lock.
Is it possible to remove the cable for the hood latch and install a lock and key right there on the hood itself somehow?
What are the best immobilizer systems that money can buy? The ones with a computer chip in them, are they all they are cracked up to be?
I also read that lowjack is easily defeated too if the theif has a lowjack detector they can find it and snip the wires. They can also put the car in the back of a truck lined with lead in order to stop the signal from getting to the GPS. So low jack is out of the question.
Is the BOOT trick a good idea? The kind that parking enforcement uses? Or can the metal for it be frozen and broken apart easily?
I'm still investigating theft insurance and how much that would cost. I really want to keep all my options open. The car only has a factory stereo in it, my main concern is the whole car being stolen and striped or trashed/vandalized. There is no theft insurance right now and how horrible would it be to be making monthley payments for a car that you can't use because somebody stole it and sold the parts on the black market? Airbags are a big thing being stolen right now. The car can be broken into just for the airbags. 4 of them. Driver, passenger front and side airbags inside the seats themselves.
Help, help, what are the most cost effective measures I can take? What needs to be modified about the car to make it harder to steal once the only nighttime parking for it is public access street parking?