Camper van.

May have Fiat badges, but it's a Sevel van, a joint venture between the French and the Italians. What could possibly go wrong?

(To be fair, they're the most common camper / coachbuilt platform, particularly badged as a Ducato for some reason!)

It is normal on motorhomes (and it sounds more like a motorhome than a camper) for the diesel (or rarely petrol) cap to be keyed to the base vehicle, even if (as in our case) it isn?t obvious what the base vehicle is ( we have an A class, the ones which look like boxes on wheels).

A Fiat dealer should be able to supply a matching cap.

There is generally a second key for other locks - including the habitation door, any lockers, water filler etc. Cab doors, other than on an A class, are keyed to the base vehicle.

Central locking coverage varies. Low end it may be absent or just cover the cab doors.

The Fiat Ducato is the most popular base vehicle for motorhome conversions- either the Fiat badged one or the Peugeot version. They are supplied to converters as vans- they become your campervans, larger versions of the old VW. Cab + chassis or cab only, they become Coach build motorhomes, engine

• transmission + front wheels with/without chassis and rear wheels which become A class motorhomes.

There has been some fuss in motorhome circles re thefts recently but not of Fiats. Fords have been the subject of at least one special insurance company notice re extra measures being required. Insurance companies vary, typically they have threshold values at which they demand a Cat 1 alarm, then a tracker etc, but make does seem to influence this, at least recently.

Not sure about the distinction, but this one uses most of the van body, including side and rear doors. Unlike their previous one which was coach built and leaked after a few years.

Seems the repair company had a new lock barrel for the existing cap.

On this one the central locking covers all doors. But sadly not the fuel filler flap. Oddly, only one master key (remote etc) with the new vehicle. other key looked like a valet key. New key set comes with two remotes, but no valet key.

Anything which can be broken into and driven away within about 1/2 hour with no audible warning seems rather badly designed to me. ;-)

Staggering, considering the cost of those camper things.

Back in the, er, day I used to fit an ignition isolator switch somewhere hidden, behind the dash. Strikes me that'd be considerably more effective than these modern deterrents, and cost pennies.

years ago a customer of mine made an ingenious antitheft device out of a couple of relays: If you tried to operate the starter, it would not turn over but the horn would sound instead, to over-ride this effect, you had to flash the headlights to engage a relay in the starter circuit, before operating the starter. Simple, cheap, hard to guess at and draws attention.

Ok, a camper then.

Just to add to the confusion, the French call them all 'Camping Cars'.

Coach builts, especially the older design ones, can be prone to leaks- some more than others. Sometimes the problem is actually condensation which is confused for water ingress.

That is why you (should) have regular habitation checks.

A one time it was possible to rearrange/swap the bits in the actual lock, which was held together by a circlip. I remember adapting one for a friend.

With the base vehicle Fiat supply a remote 'flip' key and a normal key. They unlock all the base vehicle locks.

Unless you get an alarm as an extra, you don't get a second remote. If you do have an alarm, you may end up with 3 remotes- not all utilise the Fiat one.

By no Valet key, I assume you mean no second key- the Ducato doesn't have a true Valet key. That seems rather naff. Having only one key (especially if you have a wife/partner etc) is a pain in the posterior).

That applies to most cars/vehicles.

I do like that!

My Mk1 Golf Cabrio had a pressure switch under the carpet in the driver's footwell - but you had to know where to press to start the engine!

Yes. I did wonder if there was something dishonest going on there - since I've never known any car to come with only one key.

But given the damage the thieves did, they didn't have the other key. ;-)

Pretty well every car I've owned in ages has an audible alarm if a door was opened. Triggered by the interior light. And most have movement sensors too.

It was just by chance they looked out at it and saw it missing. It was close enough for an alarm to be heard.

I'd guess near any home brewed thing like that would confuse most thieves. Considering how few even decent mechanics have much of a clue about car electrics.

Why wasn't it parked on their own drive ?.

The base vehicles don?t have alarms or the conversions would- not a reason the conversions shouldn?t but it rather shots down the idea all vehicles have alarms- Smart Cars don?t, at least the 450 and 451 (mk1 and 2 types in simple terms).

Not all insurers demand them for motorhomes, some have a value threshold. So demand a tracker.

Overall, considering their value, they are cheap to insure.

In London? ;-)

Their street is a cul-de-sac in an 80s estate. They can and do park their car outside their house, but the van is too wide for that narrow steet. So park on the feeder road.

so they need a paging alarm system.

Or store it in secure off-road location, not take up valuable on-street parking space.

Luckily the estate has resident's parking which you have to pay for. To stop the likes of you parking there to hop on the tube.

Quite.

I love the idea of the extension for the OBD port where it presents a 'live' dummy in the std position that offers power but little else.

They plug their OBD device in and it seems to work ... but doesn't ... wasting more of their time in vein and giving time for the 'Trunk Monkey' to do it's thing. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

better still a live feed to pin 14