I'm glad that's not my Mercedes...

nmacc

Aftermath of the Bank Holiday Weekend, this morning in Brendan Road, Dublin 4

Max_Damage

At least they left it on blocks.

Some **** robbed the rear wheels on our Starlet a few years ago, they just left it on the ground.

Anan1

Couldn't have happened to a nicer car.

cbyrne

How do they manage to get all four wheels off and the car up on blocks with no-one seeing them.. in Dublin! not quite a smash and grab,

I thought the days of nicking alloys were gone..:(

Stevie Dakota

Nice to finally see Mercedes ML off road.

Victor_M

Stevie Dakota wrote: »

Nice to finally see Mercedes ML off road.

Hahaha - Best reply of the day!

nmacc

The owner may not know about this yet. Locals suggested that they may be in Portugal and due back tonight. This took place in a quiet tree-lined, but very well overlooked stretch of completely residential road in Donnybrook/Ballsbridge. It's not exactly the sort of place where the locals get-out-&-get-under, so anyone working on a car in the street could be expected to attract some attention. Seems they got away with it however.

feylya

In the past 2 months in my area, the alloys off 2 A3's have been stolen and the cars left up on blocks. Unreal.

Stevie Dakota

A chap I know had the Catalytic converter cut off his car, strange but true.

Victor_M

nmacc wrote: »

The owner may not know about this yet. Locals suggested that they may be in Portugal and due back tonight. This took place in a quiet tree-lined, but very well overlooked stretch of completely residential road in Donnybrook/Ballsbridge. It's not exactly the sort of place where the locals get-out-&-get-under, so anyone working on a car in the street could be expected to attract some attention. Seems they got away with it however.

You'd be surprised how quick these knackers car remove the wheels from a vehicle, at 5 in the morning not too many people around!

My neighbour had the wheels from his CLK 200, swiped a couple of years ago, I didn't hear anything, wheels cost 7K apparantly, kind of deserved it for pimping up a lifeless CLK200 as a CLK AMG55 (badged as one as well as the full body kit) and more than likely attracting unwanted attention to a car that didn't deserve it.

If there wasn't a market for stolen wheels from dodgy sources they wouldn't bother stealing them, so the type of people who buy these wheels are as bad as the people selling them!

Biro

Stevie Dakota wrote: »

A chap I know had the Catalytic converter cut off his car, strange but true.

Funny you should mention that, but it's only recently I heard why they do that. Apparently they use Platinum in the making of Catalytic converters, so the thieves steal them and melt down the Platinum for re-sale!
Don't remember where I heard that, but any mechanic or materials technologist can confirm what converters are made from?

nmacc

Biro wrote: »

Apparently they use Platinum in the making of Catalytic converters, so the thieves steal them and melt down the Platinum for re-sale!

The main component of the cat is a ceramic grid or honeycomb which is plated with platinum. The grid is designed to expose the maximum surface area to allow the platinum to do it's work of converting the combustion products to CO2 & H2O. The platinum iteslf is theoretically there for life as it is only a catalyst, meaning something that facilitates a chemical reaction and is not consumed as part of that reaction.

In practice of course they don't last forever and too much fuel in the mixture can destroy them, as can a backfire. This can crack the ceramic honeycomb and lead to a rattling cat. In extreme cases the broken ceramic can block the exhaust.

As for stealing the platinum itself, I'd speculate that it's a lot easier to sell on the complete unit to a dodgy metals dealer than to try and separate out the platinum.

There's apparently been quite a rash of these thefts in the US of A with the Toyota 4 Runner SUV being particularly popular as the cat is bolted on and the high ground clearance makes removal easy.

Stephen

Disappearing alloy wheels: a sure sign that the economy is going down the toilet!

rebel.ranter

Would these have had locking nuts I wonder?

ART6

nmacc wrote: »

As for stealing the platinum itself, I'd speculate that it's a lot easier to sell on the complete unit to a dodgy metals dealer than to try and separate out the platinum.

Scrap cats are actually quite valuable, and there are a lot of them about in the scrap metal industry. The recovery process for the metals is, however, a highly technical ball game, generally involving shredding in big impact breakers to reduce the ceramic core and outer casing to small particles, recovering the steel from the casings, and followed by heating the ceramic crumb in plasma arc furnaces. Anyone can have such a plant for a few multiples of millions. Not something the average knacker is going to to in his caravan.

The problem is, of course, that they take the ones they've nicked to a dodgy scrap dealer, as said earlier, and he then sells them on to the reprocessor, so there's no direct audit trail to the thieves.

Run_to_da_hills

Are you sure this guy didn't just get four punctures?

Anan1

What guy? I've never seen one of them being driven by a man. Or a brunette woman, for that matter.

G-Money

I thought Merc alloy wheels had one nut that was cut special and you needed a unique key in order to get it off?

But being knackers, I assume they already had one.

Would have been interesting had someone caught them at it.

Run_to_da_hills

At least who ever took them had the courtesy to leave the car up on blocks, you can imagine how difficult it would be to jack it up had the car been left resting with the axles on the ground.

ramanujan

they weren't that nice, is it just me or does it look like its resting on its rear brake disks??

this just shows it can happen anywhere. Feel sorry for the owner, at least he can probably afford it.

Scottie99

rebel.ranter wrote: »

Would these have had locking nuts I wonder?

Let me guess the wheel nuts key were with the spare tyre or in the glove or side compartment!:rolleyes:

elmolesto

Stevie Dakota wrote: »

Nice to finally see Mercedes ML off road.

LMAO:D

milltown

The steel wheels were nicked off my wife's Golf a few years back! It seems they undid the studs, lifted the car, took the wheel and let it down on the ground. They only got the rears. Presumably too hard to lift the weight of the front.

G-Money

I had an idea years ago that they should fit something to cars that detects whether it's the owner who is trying to get into it. If not, the person get's electrocuted

But as with most justice thingies, the scumbag would most likely sue you for injuring them while they attempted to steal your car.

NiSmO

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rabbitinlights

Would the car alarm not go off with all the movement?

Run_to_da_hills

NiSmO wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Simple. Cordless drill and solid tungston carbide bit. the same method skangers use to cut through the high security cylinder locks in phone boxes.

ramanujan wrote: »

they weren't that nice, is it just me or does it look like its resting on its rear brake disks??

this just shows it can happen anywhere. Feel sorry for the owner, at least he can probably afford it.

Thats what TPFT insurance is for. The owner would probably only eligible for a claim only if the car was torched.

nmacc

grandmaster wrote: »

I had an idea years ago that they should fit something to cars that detects whether it's the owner who is trying to get into it. If not, the person get's electrocuted

I had a friend back in my college days who drove a Fiat 500; yes, the original one before it was fashionable, it was that long ago.

He found it effective to leave an electric fence transformer behind the driver's seat wired to the door handles. It worked quite well at discouraging handle-tryers.

Max_Damage

nmacc wrote: »

He found it effective to leave an electric fence transformer behind the driver's seat wired to the door handles. It worked quite well at discouraging handle-tryers.

That is the best thing I've heard in a long time! Might try that with my Micra!

nmacc

Max_Damage wrote: »

That is the best thing I've heard in a long time! Might try that with my Micra!

Best fit a flashing LED or similar. My friend would occasionally forget that he'd switched it on.....:D

Anan1

NiSmO wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

A GL? Absolutely. They'd be sorry they ever told me.:)