Anti Theft Device
 

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100%.

Ain't that the truth. When I go to certain events in my Taco I make the valet crazy because I won't let them park my truck. They say they must park it, then they see the stick in the floor and panic.

Rowing through the gears is all part of the joys of a manual in a pcar.

Not just a pcar. I’ve had my E46 for 5 months now and I still smile when I learn something new about where it wants me to shift in a given situation.


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When i first moved to Oklahoma City, for whatever stupid reason, I picked a bank that was downtown. Back in the 1970s, banks were not allowed by law to have branches. Yea really. Nice bank, but it was a real pain to drive downtown. They had no on street parking, so to go inside, meant their own parking garage, and that was valet parking only!

I pulled up in my 914, with the roof off, and turned off the car, and of course set the parking brake. The valet needed my keys. so I asked if he could drive one of these cars. He replied in a snotty tone that he can drive anything. He fired it up, stuck it in second gear and of course it died. He tried again with third, and of course it died. He tried 2nd again and I said it will require you to use first gear, it is just a 2.0 liter 4 cylinder engine.

He held his hands up and asked where is first? So I reached in, and of course it is a dogleg 901 transmission, far to the left, and back. He started it again, and killed it. I suggested he really needs to take the parking brake off before trying to move the car. So he looked in the center console, under the dash, behind the steering wheel, and again put his hands upside down and he said where in hell is the parking brake release. I reached in, the the left of the seat, and he fired it up and put it in the very first spot that had a sign, reserved for bank president. I told him I would not be long.

When I returned, he handed me the keys and said I could drive it out. I smiled but did not say anything. I changed banks shortly after that to one down the street from me. And long ago the law was changed and we can have multiple branches of a bank like every other state.

Google says less than 3% of the cars in the US are stick shift and only 18% of the population knows how to drive stick.

I wonder if traffic would flow better with more stick shift vehicles- harder to text in a stick and it seems to me you need to be more attentive to operate a car with a stick shift. Maybe less brake use too? Seems like I see brake lights for no reason on many cars these days.

My first car was a '68 Firebird with a 3-on-a-tree. The engine was cool, though. The 4.1L OHC straight six.

^^^ My drivers training class had no cars other than 'three on the trees' in 1968

My mazda 121 was stolen by a tow company (picked up in front of my apartment as an "abandoned vehicle" and they did not notify police).


Nothing will stop a thief.

A thief with a tow truck.

Honestly. That's the way to do it. Pick em up. Extort the cash from the owner IF they ever find it. If the owner never finds it, they file for the title.

If the police come calling, state it was a simple clerical error. But the police won't say anything because it's a civil matter and for the courts.

Gone are the days of some chucklehead rubbing wires together.

...almost every car. Most of the cars that I've owned have been manual, and I would have been happy for the others to have been manual. I've had large V-8 manual cars, little <100hp manual cars, etc.... Some cars need to be manual. I suppose it's possible these days for auto trannies to perform well enough to be OK behind just about anything, but I'd still prefer a manual.

And in the place of a manual, I'd never choose a slushbox. I'd choose one of two other transmissions, an automatic manual like a PDK, SMG, etc... some sort of manual box with computerized shifting. The other thing that I'd choose would be some sort of CVT (it would have to be sturdy/reliable) And I'd be happy for it to actually be CV rather than like many CVTs where they have artificial shift points to make them feel like a regular transmission. The CVT in our outback will occasionally not "shift". I've had times where I was accelerating into traffic and the RPMs set and then the speed kept climbing. That's pretty interesting.

I doubt most folks are actually "hot wiring" many vehicles, but I suspect a surprising number of cars are still being stolen by having their steering locks and keyswitches broken.

Vaguely related note, a college roommate drove his '87 TA (this was '89) down from NJ to FL for college, and while he and his mother were in in a hotel before he even got to college his car was stolen with all of his clothes, stereo, CDs, etc... inside.

He got it back a few weeks later because the thieves tried to sell the car to an undercover cop for $500. They'd broken the keyswitch and broke a metal linkage in the steering column for the steering lock. The dealer quoted $275 to fix it. I had tools, he asked me if I could fix it. I told him "I can take it apart. I can't guaranty that I can put it back together." (since it was a relatively complicated steering column, tilt, telescopic, multiple stalks including lights, wipers, cruise, etc..., I wasn't sure what specialized tools might be required. I now know that there's a spring/plate that requires a tool that you can get for $5-10.) I let them borrow my tools and he and our neighbor got it apart. They got stuck, and after I got them over the hump, they had the column COMPLETELY apart (even pulled the heavy rod out of the steering box so there was nothing but a hole in the firewall).

We tried to get that plate/spring back on without the tool, but could not. He was able to drive the car to the dealer (there was 1/2" of slop in the steering column since the spring wasn't installed). It ended up costing him $500 instead of $275.

Right, only the classics are getting hot wired.

Now they just plug into the obd2 port or swap an ecm with matching key.

Here they’re breaking into garages and driving away because the keys are in the car or walking into the unlocked house and picking the key ring off the counter.


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