Date:         Thu, 4 Aug 2005 11:01:47 -0700
Reply-To:     Ben S <phlogiston420@GMAIL.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Ben S <phlogiston420@GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      serious vanagon security issues
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

well i have always been the first to say that car alarms are annoying
and useless, but i have just changed my mind.  last week, i went away
on a business trip after completing preperations for a mid week
vacation to socal and yosemite (all new fuel lines, new wiring and
high rpm oil pres sensor, new oil pressure gauge, bilstiens all
around, the latter job performed by buslab in berkeley).  as usual, i
left my van on the street by my house in a decent area of oakland and
stashed the faceplate for my alpine deep in a hidden rear pocket of my
seat cover, behind some maps.

i returned on friday, about 3 hours before leaving on the all night
drive to san bernardino for "rock the bells" (which was awesome,
incedentally) to find that my driver's side door had been unlocked and
the faceplate for my alpine had been stolen from its hiding place! 
they had not taken the actual deck out of the dash, and they had been
unsucessful in getting my subwoofer out from under the rear bench
seat.  apalled, i called my gf and said that we had to take her car on
our trip, as there would be no travelling without music.  i pulled the
(now useless) head unit from the dash and took out my subwoofer box
(jl audio 10w0 sub), and disconnected the fuel pump relay to
discourage a further break in.

well i got back last night and found the door unlocked again!  this
time they took the door mounted crossovers and dash mounted tweeters
(along with the my custom fabricated mounts) from the $900 mb quart
component set that i got for a third of that since it was a showroom
set from a discontinued line.  they also broke the plastic trim off
the steering column and pulled the wires off the ignition switch. 
glad i pulled that relay.

so now i'm wondering what to do... i took out my $200 autometer oil
pressure gauge, took out my rear mb quart co axial speakers, and
removed the remaining 6" mb quart woofers from the front doors.  i'm
hoping they won't get my amp out from under the rear facing seat since
the seat must be removed to get to the nylock nuts that i used to
mount it.  i need to secure my van so that i can proceed to reinstall
and replace my stereo before my next planned trip (to the shakedown
festival in oregon later this month).

so here are my questions:

has anyone ever done anything to secure the locks on the front doors? 
i have seen how easy these are to open--one time my gf (honest, it
wasn't me!) locked the keys in the car and it only took the tow truck
driver 30 seconds to slip a wire tool under the rolled up window, into
the inside of the car, and lift up the little knob to unlock to door. 
i'm sure these last two break ins used a similar means.  i wonder if
there is a better way to strengthen this aspect of the van (other than
the duct tape that is residing on the door locks right now).  however,
i have also had my van broken in to by smashing the wing window and
rolling down the main window, so i need an alarm, too, i imagine.  so
what kind of alarm systems have people installed?  i guess i'll have
to resign myself to having one of those stupid remote controls on my
keychain now, as i don't want any sort of entry delay on my siren to
allow deactivation by means of a hidden or keyswitch.  what brands of
alarm systems are good?  which are most resistant to remote
deactivation by some sort of transmitter that scans through all the
codes?  where can i get a "pain siren" that will blast out the
eardrums of anyone inside my van once the alarm goes off?  are there
sensors that detect the sound of glass breaking?

also, i presently do not have any sort of switch that detects the
sliding door opening...  but it looks like there was a spot for one. 
do any vans have this switch?  i'll need to install one and it would
be easiest if i could get one that was made for the application.

thanks for any advice, and let this be a warning to others out
there... your van can be broken in to very easily by some stupid punk
ass kid or perhaps the neighborhood smack addict.

Ben.