2002 max gle

Well, last thursday i came out from my office to our nice "secured" corporate lot to find my headlights ripped out, back passenger window smashed, both front windows tampered with, pioneer deck ripped out, glove compartment emptied any any personal items i had worth any cash gone.

Police came, called crime scene (who actually showed up and fingerprinted and photed the whole car)....Wasnt expecting that.

As they were leaving, they got a call about a mile away for another max.

Talked to insurance today, a shade under 4k for the repairs, will take about a month to get fixed at the dealers bc they have a "high workload" now.... Talked to the dealer and he said I was his 5th max headlight replacement in the last week. It also sounds that the others were just headlights, but since i had a radio and some other goodies in the car they decided to break my windows.

Anyone in the bethlehem,allentown or surrounding areas of PA may want to watch where you park your max...

These guys rolled into a coporate parking lot in the middle of the day and did this all while my alarm was sounding....

Couple of questions.

1. Does our alarm stop after a certain amount of time?

2. can the dealership do anything at this point to make the replacements more secure?

I have this sick feeling that a group from jersey or NY could hit this area every 4 or 6 months, and they know where im at now....

For those who have had it happen to them, i feel your pain now. You never really think about it until it happens to you. It is such a sick feeling.

 

+1...........


This is mos def an east coast thing! I still havent heard of it happening majorally over here. That sucks. I got my car jacked once, right before Christmas when I first moved out here to Vegas. Had all my presents and crap in the back. GL Buddy

 

Eh all you can do is get it fixed man dont worry about it too much or itll drive you nuts, theyll eventually get caught but as we all know, even if a car alarm is going off for a while, the first thing that comes to mind is "why wont that ***** car shut off", not "oh **** some1s car is getting jacked" so the alarm probably is not an issue, if it went off for an hour it wouldnt have mattered.

 

Sorry to hear that, this is why I just LOVE my big windows in my office, I can see my car all day along, even the idiots at work who park next to me and ding my car with their doors, they know Im watching.

 

tell them to data dot them

 

What is a "data dot"
or what does it do?

thanks

 

Why's it gotta be a NY thing? Sorry about your car but dont blame NY! There are many desperate knuckleheads in pennsylvania too.

 

not trying to offend anyone....

Just passing along what the police told me...

Be it NY, Jersey or eastern PA, they said the headlead theives will hit each area every 3 or 4 months. Stay a couple days and hit as many max's as they can find and move on. THe point was more, what can I do now to prevent getting ripped off again by the same people more than it was pointing the finger at NY...

 

I was kidding. I dont have HIDs but one thing people can do is make it harder to take them. If there are screws holding them together you can get different types of screws like one phillips, one torx, and one allen...etc. They might just get pizzed off and leave. Or smash a window and leave your headlights alone.

Another thing you can do is "damage" them in some way. Burn a number in them with a solder iron or etch "f'uck you" with an engraving tool. Something to prevent them from reselling the parts. Nobody will buy a headlight with f'uck you written on them. hopefully

When I get an alarm I never install the siren. Because it's redundant. Nobody looks at cars with alarms going off anymore.

They do sell piezo electric horns that produce weird and annoying noises. Like a seal getting raped. They're small too. I'd put one of them in under the hood mounted in a way that's really hard to get out. Like under the battery tray. I think they are annoying enough to get people's attention.

Too bad it's illegal to have flame throwers attached to your alarm like they do in South Africa

 

any1 got a way to keep them from getting jacked?

 

Headlights will be coded with information so if they try and sell them, the next purchaser, etc will know they are stolen. Sound about right folks?

 

Are they selling these things as replacements or upgrades for Maxs?? Or are they stripping them for the bulbs and ballasts??

 

Sorry to hear about your loss. Data dots is a good way to help you in the future.

 

I've heard from previous threads that these hoodlums want the ballasts. They could care less about anything else. I got a 01 so I don't gotta worry about the theft issue. I'm pretty sure they make some type of lock's for them now. But even that won't stop the determined theif.

 

ballast is what they want.....they don't care about the housing etc.... the only way to protect them is to build a metal cover for the ballast.

 

Reason #1 I won't upgrade my lamps to the 02's. NY=bye bye headlights. It's a shame though but the only thing that I would say to do for prevention is get 2k/2k1 headlights and sleep easy. Sucks but your headlights will ALWAYS be a target. It's an easy pop out and they get what they want (the ballast and bulbs)

 

Is this a problem in the MA area (south MA) because I might be relocating there in a few months?? Thanks.

 

Sorry to hear that boss... That is one of the reasons I actually stirred away from the 02 instead of the 01... (still would have bought one if I would have found the right one)... But I'm in the city every weekend, and not in the good areas. My mother lives in Alphabet City and my father in the South Bronx. I have seen a couple of Max's and TL's without lights. I would get TOO pissed...

Sorry for the loss., just fix it and move on man. Hope it does not happen again.

 

psu711: Sorry to hear about that...hopefully the trend won't spread too deep into Cleveland.

 

I live in RI and drive through there all the time... Cars in Boston aren't too safe, but a bit out of the city, close to the RI border and stuff, yea, you shouldn't have any problems. Key word is shouldn't... I still worry about my car no matter where it is, unless it's in my garage with the car cover over it.

Sorry for your loss psu711. I had my 4th gen broken into in Boston. Tried to steal my radio, got frustrated and just broke other stuff out of spite.

 

Yea, I think Fairhaven was the town we might be relocating to. Thanks for the info.

 

1) I think that they do stop after a while. When my lights were stolen the cut the wires to the horn

2) As everyone has said, get the stealer to put in data dots. If the crooks really want the lights they are gonna get them but at least it won’t be a 5 min job

 

Sorry about the theft. I have recently purchased a Xenon Headlamp Theft Deterrent Bracket Kit. It probably won't completely stop anyone who wants to mess up the car, but at least it will make it harder to steal the ballast and lights.
http://www.nissanhelp.com/Ownership/.../NTB05-035.htm

 

umm yea, i think that's part of the datadot recall, which is free for NE guys.

 

I live in NJ and after work around 11pm I saw 3 people around my car... It's completely stock so its not like they were admiring any work done on it. They yelled "nice car" then took off. Needless to say I now park my car under the store's parking lot security camera.