Went to work today and found out sometime last night. 9 maximas had their headlights stolen. Totall damage about $30000. Each headlight costs about 850 new. Somepeople really have no respect anymore

 

Probably see a wave of new ebay auctions very soon

 

how did they steal them? they had to pop the hood right?

 

They steal them by stuffing a crow bar in the front grille usually and then forcing the hood open. Or in some cases they might not have to.

 

In NYC, you are very, very lucky if your 2k2 has not had it's headlights stolen if you park on the street over night...

i'm not over exaggerating either.. it's that bad.


According to some dealers, this problem, primarily hit the 2k2-2k3 resale value very hard in the northeast, or at least in NYC..

so sad


In a way it is good for Nissan, since they are making a sh!tload on selling those HIDs at 850$ per headlight.. especially when they get stolen non stop.

 

they should etch them or something where most people wouldn't notice on the backside so when found, can find out who it belonged to and who to charge.

 

hehehehe dealer thefts d@mn sucks. i work at a nissan dealer in so cali and a few months ago. we had. 3 2k2maximas stolen all previous manager demos with dubs. a 2k2 altima 3.5 with dubs jacked. any trade in with parts to take jacked. a total of like 20 different cars stolen. oh and when they were found they were found totally stripped. sucks

 

a dealer by me got hit for over 20 one night

 

I wonder if Nissan made these lights easy to steal on purpose...

 

I doubt that they were made easy to steal on purpose; however, they should work on making them harder to steal. Are Nissan's the only cars with this HID theft problem?

 

no acura originally had the problem with tl/cl and still have a huge problem.

it's very hard to make it hard to steal. here's why. theives want the bulb and ballast/starter...not the headlight housing. you can put as many super-duper titanium bolts in the housing as you want, all they do is crack the housing in half and steal the bulb and starter.

the reason acura/nissan are getting hit hard is simple... there are ALOT of tl/maximas out there so the hid's are plentiful. not every bmw/mercedes/lexus has hid so it's not worth breaking the headlights and finding out but a thief can be assured that any 02/03 maximas has hid and any tl/cl has hid.

 

I'm about to add a mercury switch to each light along with a limit switch at the first point of movement on the lights in pararel with the hood alarm switch. Hopefully, with my horns blairing either I'll run out and get to beat the **** out of the thief or they'll just run away, causing minimal damage. I'm also adding air horns that i'll have a diverter switch connected to redirect my horn impulse power to the air horns instead. I already changed the maxima horns to altima horns (louder american horns). Hopefully my alarm mods will help out.. Any other ideas on preventing headlight theft. I like that etching idea, but it is true that they only want the ballast and the bulb..

Thanks,
Nick

 

I don't think it is worth it to them. 2k3s are the last of the 5th generation maximas being made.. This problem is serious but not everywhere. I bet changing the design and stuff is just too expensive and the cars will still sell.. besides, they are making a killing on parts..

2k2s are very cheap and are awesome cars but one thing drawing me away from them is headlight theft.
If i was to get one, i'd probably swap the hids out right away for regular headlights..

 

UM stealing brand new cars from the dealership?? I don't get it, don't they have security cameras and stuff on their lots? it sounds absurd (cuz i dunno what kinda security measurements are taken at the dealerships)

 

I don't know, but I've heard that some of the street racing teams here will steal cars from the dealer all the time. One of my friends got caught doing it once and was put in jail. I just laughed. People need to learn to work for their crap.

 

Did you ever see "Gone in 60 Seconds" ?

 

hahah oh yes, it's called "boosting" right?

 

This is all an interesting role reversal-

Usually it is the dealers "stealing" from us...

Seriously, I DO realize that we all pay for this in the end, but it just seemed ironic.

 

alot of places leave alot of car unlocked without knowing it... i was at the nissan place near me not too long ago at about 10pm and i was checking out this 99 infiniti I30 5spd...it just happen to be open and the keys were sitting right there in the ignition i just wanted to take it for a drive so bad but i controlled myeself

 

wtf , haha keys in the ignition?!

 

I'd rather just NOT have HID's. I'm glad Nissan made them optional on the 04 3.5SE's

 

Yes, that is correct!

haha, it kinda is ironic that instead of dealing stealing from us, were stealing from them..

 

Y?

 

Yeah, you know what's really bad? It's terrible publicity for the dealership. Would you want to buy a brand new car that's already need north of 2 grand in body work even though it has 15 miles on the odometer? No way. How can you be sure you didn't get one of those 9 cars? go to a different dealer. Darn shame that dealers can't just put razor wire around their lots and shut a gate when they close (theft is one instance when I would side with the dealership).

 

"we're?" speak for urself lol

 

I figure they're hitting the dealers now because they can get a bunch in one shot. In a couple of months the '03s will be gone and they're gonna have to get them one set at time from you and me.

 

haha, i meant "we" as the people ~vs~ the dealer. hmmm, confusing, but yeah, i get it. lol

 

here is an idea
dealer should spend the money and hire a sniper that will camp at the dealership until this is solved.
think about it, if some guy went to dealership trying to steal hid and ended being shot. and this is definitely going to be in the news. maybe that way most of the thieves will be scared and not do it anymore?

ya i play too much counter-strike

 

haha, good idea, but yeah, to many Video games for you bud

Eric

 

You know .. as bad as it sounds .. maybe this is a good thing. If Nissan is hearing this directly from their dealers .. perhaps they would acknowledge that there is a problem and make the HID's more secure in future generations.

Too bad it doesn't benefit us.