Yup. They don’t care. I had a hit and run with a VIN-stickered chunk of the offending vehicle stuck in my vehicle. Cop himself pulled it out. I called every week for months to follow up. Could never get them to actually do anything even though they ID’ed the guy on the scene.

Well, it would help if the cops actually GAVE A FUCK about auto theft.

Case in point, I recently had one of these fine monuments to motoring in my shop for theft damage repairs. We opened the trunk to see if any additional parts were hanging out, and what did we find? The kid’s backpack, with his NAME ON IT.

Called…

Nothing says “civilised” like brutal and sadistic punishment! 

*while getting hauled away after breaking SO MANY windows at a Fortune 500 headquarter*

I definitely agree. I lived in a neighborhood with plenty of three car garages in the South and it shocked me how many people didn’t use their garages because they were full of crap. We’re talking homes with full finished basements, plenty of closets, and yet the garage was still full of junk. 

Most of the thefts of these KIAs and Hyundais were kids doing it on a dare. They saw how to do it on TikTok or whatnot (and how easy it was), and off they went. It was primarily joyrides with no particular economic motivation other than nothing better to do and evidently no discipline at home. They weren’t stealing…

Pretty much ALL European cars have had immobilizers since the fall of the Soviet Union. Because when the East opened up, auto theft became absolutely rampant with cars disappearing past the former Iron Curtain. It was bad enough that you got a pretty massive insurance discount for having one on cars that didn’t come…

Not really. The people who actually steal the cars are easily replaced. In many cases here, they’re basically young adults who are exploited by money in communities in which the parents or parent - by dint of lack of economic opportunity - have to be at work or asleep all the time just to survive.

I expect it from every company in every market these days.

This should have been the headline two years ago. Instead legislators wanted to resort to sueing kia/hyundai instead of doing their damn job and passing laws. They could have mandated immobilizers and also make automaker’s retroactively install them for all vehicles 5 years old or newer free of charge.

I had something similar when I came to pick up my pre-paid rental a day late. My flight was canceled due to weather, so I was picking up the rental exactly 24 hours later, had prepaid for 10 days of rental, and I called to tell them my flight was canceled and that I would be coming in a day later and was assured on…

It’s probably the simplest answer: because they believe the extra money they can steal make from doing it this way outweighs the PR consequences of people complaining.

Why even check out then?  Most hotels don’t even require checkout.  Just leave your day early and don’t say shit.  Pay your unused night and be financially ahead of the sucker that went down and waited in line to check out a day early.

And, ironically, car theft is good for the car making and selling business.

Because it’s a regulation and regulations kill small businesses like Kia and Hyundai.

Hotels do the same. I never understood why the fuck they wouldn’t just take the extra revenue checking out early provides (it’s not like they’re being asked to refund the unused nights) and run. Even if demand isn’t super heavy, they still come out at break-even if not slightly ahead because of the variable costs…

Read and understand your contract. Every contract.

Stray voltage can be difficult to investigate. To test anything that might be ‘hot’, be it dangerous or just a nuisance, clip the VOM (+) lead to the source in question and the other (-) COM lead to a KNOWN good ground. I built 100% of our house. In the winter time only, our basement shower would give me a slight…

It would be nice if you actually told us how to test these things. For example, how would I test with a multimeter to see if my gutter was live? One lead goes to the gutter, but where would the other lead go?

I think Spokane County has a problem. Now have a Kia/Hyundai Auto Theft Task Force. https://www.krem.com/article/news/crime/kia-thefts-spokane-growing-problem/293-b288da5e-fbc3-47bb-9247-71bcd105c2fb