Wake
Full Access Member
Well that sounds good until you have to deal with the insurance company. I'd rather go through a little extra trouble to try to keep the vehicle. Here are two scenarios that drive my thinking.
1. The vehicle isn't recovered and you get a check from the insurance company. The problem here is that you're not going to get what the vehicle is worth, but what they say its worth. You're almost definitely not going to get enough money to replace it with one in comparable condition if you have a very clean example.
2. The vehicle is recovered. If it's wrecked I don't want it back. Chances are it will never drive the same again if it was a substantial accident.
Myself, I live in the country so there is less worry about theft out in the boonies. In the city though, I park head in among other vehicles, turn the wheels all the way over one direction, and put a club on the wheel. It won't prevent it from being stolen, but will hopefully have the would-be thief looking for an easier target what would require less work. Turning the wheels all the way over on one side is going to make it harder to tow away, hopefully adding a little discouragement. If I need to go somewhere less secure or sketchy, I take my 98 Oldsmobile and leave the Escalade or other fancy vehicles home.
You can't make a vehicle impossible to steal, but you can add enough layers of discouragement to hopefully make it impractical to steal. Turn a job from seconds into minutes for a thief and you've going to deter most of them.
