Kids tried to take valve caps

mustang68

So I'm waiting to collect my wife at the train station yesterday afternoon and I'm parked up in the Mustang, hadn't had it out in a while, wanted to stretch it's legs, when two kids (about 12/13) come up along by the car on bikes.

As with any classic I'm used to having people taking a stroll around the car, so I didn't take much notice, until both of them put down their bikes to look at my wheels. Then it hit me, they are trying to steal my valve caps, they looked into the "drivers" side, didn't see anybody, so thought they were good to go.

You should have seen the face of the kid on my side when I stepped out of the car, he was trying to undo the cap, then jumped onto his bike and headed away. Later on I happened to catch up with them (was driving the same way) wasn't difficult one of them was wearing the distinctive jeans I have ever seen, they both turned white when I honked at them and said that the gardai were coming.

What annoyed me about this was that these kids were what you would call respectable, nice accent, good clothes etc. but they were still going to try and relieve me of my valve caps. Do they use them on their bicycles ?

granadamad

ordinary dust / valve caps that come on any car or were these nice shiney chrome ones or something?

seems bizarre!

mustang68

Shiny chrome, that you need a special tool to remove, otherwise they just spin. I've already lost a set to kids so I got security ones.

Back Prince

Kids have been doing that for years. The old shoe lace is open better get down and tie it and then boom value caps are gone. They only go after the shine fancy ones to show of to mates and what not. Best option is the rubber plain ones or the security ones like ye have.

8~)

Standard car ones fit on bikes.

When I was a kid my bike had valve caps from a Jaguar.

Dades

I had a fancy set of Merc caps nicked from my SL.

Never knew there was a child market for them!

hi5

They've been at that for years.
Get some of those dice or 8 ball ones and see how long they last:mad:

mountain

I had my nice chrome one nicked a few weeks ago, very annoying,
picked up a set on ebay for a fiver, these ones have a little locking screw.

L-M

My cousin had a set robbed off his Beetle in his drive a few months back and put on plain ones out of disgust.

We were at a show about a month later and he had a set of bullet caps with him and said feck it, he bought them and he was going to use them. So I bided my time and waited for him to go for a stroll and took the caps off and put them into my pocket (bar one which I couldn't get off and nearly cut my finger). To my surprise, the show was packed and absolutely no one turned an eye to what I was doing!

Forward on 15 min-20mins and I began talking about a Beetle nearby that had the same wheels as him, when he noticed his caps were missing! To be fair his reaction was absolutely pricely, and when I returned them about 20 minutes later it was even better.

I've had them stolen off my car twice, my current ones I put on with a wrench, lol.

antodeco

Ive gone through two sets of nice caps. One set was €50

_Conrad_

mustang68 wrote: »

What annoyed me about this was that these kids were what you would call respectable, nice accent, good clothes etc. but they were still going to try and relieve me of my valve caps. Do they use them on their bicycles ?

Even "respectable" kids will mess around and do stupid things. Whether it's to look cool in front of their friends, for a dare, or some sort of self imposed test of macho-ness they still do all sorts of silly stuff.
And yes they can fit on bikes. Modern bikes that kids have are all BMX or mountain bike types and those have the same valves as cars, unlike the old valves on narrow wheeled bikes when you were a kid.

You should install sidepipes on the mustang, then if it happens again quickly start up and rev the crap out of it, hopefully the exhaust will be right by the kid's head and scare the living ****e out of him.

It works too. I once had an old diesel yoke with a tuned pump that we put a sidepipe on for laugh. I was parked beside a friend's car with my car idling as i'd just pulled up and was waiting for him to come out of a shop so we could drive off and two lads (maybe early teens) leaned against his car door, i gave a good rev and the auld jetta let out a mighty bellow and a plume of black smoke, you should have seen them jump as they got engulfed in soot.

Bigus

8~) wrote: »

Standard car ones fit on bikes.

When I was a kid my bike had valve caps from a Jaguar.

Genuine supplied over the trade counter Bought with your pocket money ;)no doubt out of Caveys or HB Dennis.

Peew

I too have had new shiny caps taken of my merc lately from the driveway of gfs house.Not impressed with this fashion thing for valve caps at the mo.