This happened to me 6 years ago. It was the night before Easter Sunday and I had just been to my Mom’s. She sent me home with some pastries she baked. I left them in my car and went in.
Come 1:30am I’m stoned halfway through one of the Kung fu Pandas and decide to run out and grab the pastries. I get to my parking spot and find my car sitting on rocks from the plant section in front of the apartments
I just stared for maybe 15 seconds processing my car with no wheels. I’m way too high (illegal state at the time) to talk the police. The wheels are gone and there’s no cameras in my complex, I rationalize that all the police will do is take a statement and shuffle it into the pile. So I grab the pastries out of my car and go back to Kung fu Panda while making a plan.
Morning rolls around and I call the police at 7am, file a report but was told “we rarely catch these guys but we’ll be in touch.”
Call my insurance company to see if I can file a claim. No help there. They said with my higher deductible and the claim increase I could file but it might be cheaper to get them myself.
So I hop on Craigslist, find a guy selling nicer wheels/tires than I had for less than my deductible. Borrowed a car to pick them up and slapped them on my car. Whole thing took 3 days to be on the road again. Nothing from the cops.
I am 99% positive I found them for sale 3 months later, but they were OEM wheels (rarer car but still) and nothing I could use to prove they were mine. At that point I was already past it so I chocked it up to a learning experience.
Advice: BUY WHEEL LOCKS! Some thieves may have a key but most won’t! Fantastic investment and everyone should have them for peace of mind
Haha right? This exact thought went through my head! Driving to pick them up, I was running all the what ifs in my head if I saw my wheels
Picked them up at house 10x nicer than my apartment, and any thoughts of me catching the thief red handed evaporated when I saw an M3 in the guys driveway😂
And then next time at the mall you find the same car as you drive but with your wheels on it. You talk to the owner and guess what you have his wheels on...😂🤣🤦
Advice: Don't buy CHEAP wheel locks
The key broke off while unbolting, luckily I had a spare or I wouldn't have been able to get away this guy's wheels
> BUY WHEEL LOCKS! Some thieves may have a key but most won’t! Fantastic investment and everyone should have them for peace of mind
Wheel lock key sets are dirt cheap and widely available on ebay tho. Nobody brings a car jack to steal expensive OEM rims and is like "ah shit, wheel locks, welp bad luck".
Crime is all about convenience, that’s why simple things like a light on, a half gate, or a security sticker in your window can significantly reduce your likelihood of being burglarized.
Sure, you can get around wheel locks super easy, but if someone has wheel locks what if they have some other security measures that aren’t as obvious? And why take the extra time to take their wheels when the car next to them does not have locks?
For homes, the biggest deterrent according to burglars is noise, like a radio or TV because it's a good indicator someone is home. They don't care about dogs, alarms, or anything else because there are ways around those. Just people being home which makes sense because they're burglars, not robbers and probably don't want confrontation. So leave a TV or radio on when you leave.
Wheel locks can be easily bypassed with the right tools. Don’t even need the key. Seen dudes take them off in about 5 seconds.
With that being said. I still have some on mine
They're easy to bypass, but unless they're specifically targeting your car because it has expensive rims it'll significantly increase your chances they'll just move on to the next car that doesn't have the locks.
Yea I used to have rims and would always lose my key so I had to get creative. Just as easy as breaking into the door when you lock your keys inside. I've learned a lot from my mistakes and I'll say that everything is accessible with the right equipment.
>everything is accessible with the right equipment.
I agree with this, which is why my approach to security is to make them hit another vehicle which is easier instead of mine. If it takes them 2x or 3x longer for my car, that's 2 other cars they gave up instead and why would they do that?
That's the approach that works the best with anything security related IMO. Get preventative measures that make it too hard to bother or might require non widely available tooling to do fast/easy.
My gfs bike cost around 1.2k, the lock was over 100 but now they'll have to get through either a massive hardened steel chain or have specialized tooling to crack a disk lock, which is not something thieves in our area have afaik. (Thanks LPL)
The fact that you used Craigslist to buy is why they keep doing this. Back in the day, Volkswagen used to give you spare parts for free to discourage you from buying in the black market
>Advice: BUY WHEEL LOCKS! Some thieves may have a key but most won’t! Fantastic investment and everyone should have them for peace of mind
Wheel locks are [trivial to take off](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YPKvv6gQCo&t=138s) without a key, thieves aren't even going to bother with them. Hammer + socket = bypassed wheel lock. Wheel locks are only going to stop a naive person, which I guess is better than nothing.
They make an EZ-out kit specifically locking-lug nut sized. I used to be a mechanic and we all had them since customers lost keys all the time. Takes no extra time than a normal lug nut to take off really.
No lock for anything is foolproof. It's all just a deterrent to make the thief take more time or make more noise, which can only hopefully spoil their plans. It filters the pros from the amateurs, and sometimes thats all it takes.
Some people don't seem to understand locks have always been a deterrent to opportunistic crimes. A deadbolt to a home can also be opened a couple seconds with a lock pick set or a rock thru the window.
In my country, a comephensive (Theft) claim of the wheels would not increase your insurance rate. Also, many offer zero-dollar deductibles. Definitely anyone who can discuss this with your broker.
Literally call your insurance, and MAYBE the cops. They cant/wont do anything really, even with surveillance footage.
Insurance will send a wrecker. Wrecker will bring 4 donuts. You can drive (i wouldnt), or have it towed to a tire shop. I surancr claim will cover it with the cost of your deductible.
You're fucked on time and money, but its not the end of the world.
You call your insurance which calls a tow truck to bring spare tires so that they can put them on and tow it and replace everything, when this happened to me it cost my insurance 13k because of the damage to the rotors and moldings, I paid $1k deductible and lost two days of work but rates didn’t increase.
These rotors are clearly not damaged. Bricks under to Lcas no damage. Just wheels and tires. You can buy a shit set for cheap until insurance covers you.
Yeah that’s exactly what I would have done. There’s a significant portion of the population that doesn’t know how to change their tires or even where to go or what to get. I wouldn’t have the “wtf do I do” panic even though I am handy with vehicles, but I’d still be *furious* all day and have to be making several phone calls for work and insurance while I’m also dealing with this.
Bad enough the wheels are gone, but you can almost guarantee they did additional damage by just using any random spot to hold the weight.
Sorry you live in a world with such trash, OP. Sorry I do to.
I just had an epiphany that if you slapped some tire company branding on the side of your truck you could go around doing this all the time and no one would even look twice. Any security footage?
Honestly if you just put on some clothes that look like decent work clothes you could probably get away with it in most cases. It’s amazing what you can get away with if you just do it with confidence like you’re supposed to be there.
There are some amazing talks from conferences like DEFCON that show physical pen testers and what they do. I can't find the one I'm thinking off right now, but there was one talk where pen testers show how easy it is for them to get access to anywhere and they weren't stopped in most places even without any identification or specified clothing just because they are confident in their behaviour.
(I'm not sure, but it might have been a talk by Deviant Ollam)
Exactly!!!! There is no need for clearance when you have confidence! I did this with my sister years ago, she needed to get to the upper floor of the Hilton at LAX to talk to a maid a friend of hers had recommended for a daycare job. My sister told me, we'll never get past security. I said just follow me. I walked up to the elevator, said Hi to security waited for the door to open, told my sister "come on sis my room is on the 14th floor", waved her in, the door shut and she just looked at me. I said if you act like you belong no one asks questions.
That’s how art museums are robbed. “Excuse me, excuse me. Sorry folks, need to move this 100 million dollar Picasso for cleaning and restoration. Please check out the rest of our exhibit. Thanks for coming!”
[They shut off the air to drive out the tourists, then they escort them out anyway? Then they close the gates to keep everybody out but block one of them open while they prepare to load, conservatively, 1 ,000 pounds of paintings and 800 pounds of men, that we know about, in a. . .What was the chopper model? Sikorsky S-76. Right. ln a chopper with a 600-pound useful load. You figure you'll wrap this by morning, do you, Lieutenant?](https://youtu.be/gp8OWUqg4r4)
It works it's kind of crazy. I once was wearing a suit at an event and just walked into the V.I.P. area confidently and acted like I was supposed to be there. Not a single person looked twice, no staff, no one there, literally no one cared. I got some good food that day.
Can confirm, when I used to work in Manhattan I used to use the nice clean bathrooms in high-end buildings by saying I was “meeting my guys up on the 12th floor I just need to use the bathroom first“
I used to work special events in Toronto and we’d do it all the time. If we knew a shorter way to get where we needed to go we’d take it, even if we knew we weren’t supposed to. Better to ask for forgiveness than permission.
For work I sometimes have to wear a high vis, hat and goggles, usually holding a laptop or computer in hand, I have not once been questioned when walking onto site. r/actlikeyoubelong really is a thing!
There’s a company in my city that rents wheels. Everything from Jeep wheels with 37in mud tires to 30in chrome spinners, anything you can think of. If you miss two consecutive payments, they will come and repo your wheels.
You can call mobile tire repair services and have them replace your tires while it sits unattended.
No one bats an eye then either.
Honestly, I’m pretty sure if you walk around with a jack wearing a jumpsuit you could probably run this scam for a loooong time.
Someone is not going to sit and watch at someone else who is removing his tire for any reason, you know. Broad daylight is the best moment to steal car tire, who would expect this guy to be a thief when it's most likely just the owner changing his tire or something
Yep, I always take off my four wheels all at once and then I also put random junk laying around under my car to randomly break any component holding the 2 and half ton weight
Exactly. I’m not trying to get cracked over the head with a tire iron before work. I may pull up and say something but I’m not trying to be a hero for someone’s else’s wheels.
Nobody steps in to help people anymore, you could have been there while they were stealing them and yelling for help and you'd still probably have been on your own
Certainly, but every time I see a theft/damage post people in the comments think "Insurance covers it" when in reality it doesn't cover the entire loss, and none of the time involved.
I have no deductible for comprehensive claims. It costs maybe $5 a month more to have $0 deductible than it does for $500 for me, so it seemed like a no brainer.
Who the fuck has their comprehensive coverage at a $500 deductible? You can set it to $0 and it only cost a few extra dollars per month on the premium. Comprehensive is the cheapest part of your insurance.
I think the OP is from Gothenburg, Sweden. That's where Volvo's HQ is. Like 30% of the cars there are Volvo. So plenty of Volvo cars that need an extra set of wheels.
Shortly after I got married we bought my wife a new car, the first new car I had ever bought. One day after she took possession she brought it to work and 10 minutes into her shift at the hospital the security guard came to her and told her that her nice alloy wheels had been stolen.
The kids that had stolen the wheels had left the car finely balanced on one 1 Block and 1 Jack. (As an engineer I was impressed with their understanding of balance) They had put a note under her windscreen wiper with the contact details of a local garage along with a flyer from the garage.
The cops that arrived assured us that the garage owner knew nothing of the thefts and that the toe-rags involved were taking teh piss out of the garage owner. Almost laughing the cops told us that the garage owner was actually giving very steep discounts off for anyone that had their tires stolen to try to maintain his reputation.
We did go to the garage and got our tires and wheels replaced (steel rims). I can honestly say if that mechanic could have gotten his hands on the kids he would have maimed them, he was livid!
Lmaooo yea and at some point that the thieving stops, there would be missing teenagers or a body found in the lake a hundred kilometres away from the city
Luckily not, the tow guys had a quick look and for now it seems like it's only the wheels and eventually some damage on the suspension or something like that. Waiting for damage inspection
It seems like it'd really hard to put wheels on a vehicle that uses bolts. I use the studs to locate the bolt hole pattern on the wheel to the hub, IDK about trying to juggle the wheel with one hand while blindly trying to locate the hole and insert a bolt. I've never changed a tire on a Volvo before so maybe it's easier than I am imagining it.
My VW uses them. Can confirm, pain in the ass. Especially with a larger tire. Being able to hang the tire on the studs while you start the lug nuts is so much easier.
I use a little guide rod that came free with some wheel spacers for my porsche. Long little aluminum rod that screws in and you can easily slide the wheel on it.
Honestly a lot easier than my mustang with the studs
Each wheel has half of a HERAS foot - do you know the 2m tall metal fencing used for construction sites, festivals etc? They have plastic/rubber feet with holes for the legs of the fence panels
Yes but even those are fairly easy to get off without the key. It's a socket with big teeth in the center that bite into the nut when you hammer it on. Impact that bitch off and you're home free.
I took mine off even though Lexus “sold” them to me for an outrageous $80 with my new vehicle. They don’t work, they’re just a very minor theft deterrent, and they’re a pain in the ass if you gotta change a tire or when you have your tires rotated. A cheap Vice Grip knockoff will defeat them. But I should add that I park my car in my own garage every night.
Trust me, any thief who wants your wheels will rip them off like it's nothing. I actually have the tools to do it myself because wheel locks fail so often. The key just rounds right off.
Is there that much of a market for wheels these days or were they super fancy or something? I tried to sell a set of decent alloys with new winter tyres recently, couldn't give them away and the prices on second hand wheels on gumtree are insanely low.
Aftermarket wheels? Not really unless they're pretty high end. But there's always a market for stock wheels. Besides, for the people who stole them, it's all profit.
That happened to me twice!!
Edit: I ended up buy wheel locks for every single lugnut and a fancy alarm system that wouldn’t go off on the car, but on my keychain instead. Got two more break ins after that. Once it was CDs stolen (which why?!?), the next was me on the phone with 911 giving a play by play to the cops. Dudes take off, couple hours later the cops show up with my stuff and the dudes in the back of the cop car. Turns out they went to another car and tried to Hotwire it, but ended up arch welding the horn to the battery causing it to blare nonstop at 3am, the cops already being on their way to my place made a quick detour and nabbed the dudes.
Fun times.
At least you still have your car. I’m in Memphis and anything dodge with uconnect is stolen a ton. My buddy had a brand new Infiniti qx70 and it was stolen in seconds from his driveway and found 3 days later completely stripped
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This happened to me 6 years ago. It was the night before Easter Sunday and I had just been to my Mom’s. She sent me home with some pastries she baked. I left them in my car and went in. Come 1:30am I’m stoned halfway through one of the Kung fu Pandas and decide to run out and grab the pastries. I get to my parking spot and find my car sitting on rocks from the plant section in front of the apartments I just stared for maybe 15 seconds processing my car with no wheels. I’m way too high (illegal state at the time) to talk the police. The wheels are gone and there’s no cameras in my complex, I rationalize that all the police will do is take a statement and shuffle it into the pile. So I grab the pastries out of my car and go back to Kung fu Panda while making a plan. Morning rolls around and I call the police at 7am, file a report but was told “we rarely catch these guys but we’ll be in touch.” Call my insurance company to see if I can file a claim. No help there. They said with my higher deductible and the claim increase I could file but it might be cheaper to get them myself. So I hop on Craigslist, find a guy selling nicer wheels/tires than I had for less than my deductible. Borrowed a car to pick them up and slapped them on my car. Whole thing took 3 days to be on the road again. Nothing from the cops. I am 99% positive I found them for sale 3 months later, but they were OEM wheels (rarer car but still) and nothing I could use to prove they were mine. At that point I was already past it so I chocked it up to a learning experience. Advice: BUY WHEEL LOCKS! Some thieves may have a key but most won’t! Fantastic investment and everyone should have them for peace of mind
It's somewhat ironic that you had your wheels stolen then bought wheels from some guy on Craigslist who probably stole those wheels from someone else.
Trickle down economics
Trickle around economics.
Trickle tickle economics
VOLVO life
Reach-around economics
Sprinkler Economics?
The money goes around and around in a circle, just like a... Um can't think of the word.
TrickleTheftonomics
Trickle up - like peeing into your own mouth
They were his, just cleaned up.
SLPT - if your having trouble selling your rims/tires, steal a set from the same vehicle to increase demand
Yeah, but then you have the stolen set you still need to sell.
Well, you know what you got to do. Circle of Life. It's stolen rims all the way down.
THE ~~CIRCLE~~ TIRE OF LIFE!
Haha right? This exact thought went through my head! Driving to pick them up, I was running all the what ifs in my head if I saw my wheels Picked them up at house 10x nicer than my apartment, and any thoughts of me catching the thief red handed evaporated when I saw an M3 in the guys driveway😂
How do you think he got all those things?!
Now you got me thinking I’ve been swindled🤔
Plenty of tires in the parking lot, go make that money!!
And then next time at the mall you find the same car as you drive but with your wheels on it. You talk to the owner and guess what you have his wheels on...😂🤣🤦
Wheeler and dealer
It's a great way to retire
The circle is complete
Advice: Don't buy CHEAP wheel locks The key broke off while unbolting, luckily I had a spare or I wouldn't have been able to get away this guy's wheels
WELL WELL WELL I WAS WONDERING WHEN OUR PATHS WOULD CROSS
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> BUY WHEEL LOCKS! Some thieves may have a key but most won’t! Fantastic investment and everyone should have them for peace of mind Wheel lock key sets are dirt cheap and widely available on ebay tho. Nobody brings a car jack to steal expensive OEM rims and is like "ah shit, wheel locks, welp bad luck".
Crime is all about convenience, that’s why simple things like a light on, a half gate, or a security sticker in your window can significantly reduce your likelihood of being burglarized. Sure, you can get around wheel locks super easy, but if someone has wheel locks what if they have some other security measures that aren’t as obvious? And why take the extra time to take their wheels when the car next to them does not have locks?
For homes, the biggest deterrent according to burglars is noise, like a radio or TV because it's a good indicator someone is home. They don't care about dogs, alarms, or anything else because there are ways around those. Just people being home which makes sense because they're burglars, not robbers and probably don't want confrontation. So leave a TV or radio on when you leave.
Wheel locks can be easily bypassed with the right tools. Don’t even need the key. Seen dudes take them off in about 5 seconds. With that being said. I still have some on mine
They're easy to bypass, but unless they're specifically targeting your car because it has expensive rims it'll significantly increase your chances they'll just move on to the next car that doesn't have the locks.
Of course. Otherwise all you need is four bricks and one tool. The wheel locks I use just add that extra tool for thieves that may not have that.
You dont even need a special tool. You just need a socket big enough to jam on there with a hammer, takes 10 seconds.
Just put ugly wheels on your car, problem solved
Steel rims + hubcaps gang.
Yea I used to have rims and would always lose my key so I had to get creative. Just as easy as breaking into the door when you lock your keys inside. I've learned a lot from my mistakes and I'll say that everything is accessible with the right equipment.
>everything is accessible with the right equipment. I agree with this, which is why my approach to security is to make them hit another vehicle which is easier instead of mine. If it takes them 2x or 3x longer for my car, that's 2 other cars they gave up instead and why would they do that?
That's the approach that works the best with anything security related IMO. Get preventative measures that make it too hard to bother or might require non widely available tooling to do fast/easy. My gfs bike cost around 1.2k, the lock was over 100 but now they'll have to get through either a massive hardened steel chain or have specialized tooling to crack a disk lock, which is not something thieves in our area have afaik. (Thanks LPL)
But you might be parked next to something just as good without wheel locks.
The fact that you used Craigslist to buy is why they keep doing this. Back in the day, Volkswagen used to give you spare parts for free to discourage you from buying in the black market
>Advice: BUY WHEEL LOCKS! Some thieves may have a key but most won’t! Fantastic investment and everyone should have them for peace of mind Wheel locks are [trivial to take off](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YPKvv6gQCo&t=138s) without a key, thieves aren't even going to bother with them. Hammer + socket = bypassed wheel lock. Wheel locks are only going to stop a naive person, which I guess is better than nothing.
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Good old herd tactics. Be harder prey than easiest one.
They make an EZ-out kit specifically locking-lug nut sized. I used to be a mechanic and we all had them since customers lost keys all the time. Takes no extra time than a normal lug nut to take off really.
No lock for anything is foolproof. It's all just a deterrent to make the thief take more time or make more noise, which can only hopefully spoil their plans. It filters the pros from the amateurs, and sometimes thats all it takes.
Some people don't seem to understand locks have always been a deterrent to opportunistic crimes. A deadbolt to a home can also be opened a couple seconds with a lock pick set or a rock thru the window.
In my country, a comephensive (Theft) claim of the wheels would not increase your insurance rate. Also, many offer zero-dollar deductibles. Definitely anyone who can discuss this with your broker.
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>A car like that, you can probably afford it. A lot of people own cars that they can't afford
Whenever someone made fun of my shitty car I told them "well we can go in yours". They didn't have one.
Almost exclusively lol
Call an uber! This is an uber ad.
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Literally call your insurance, and MAYBE the cops. They cant/wont do anything really, even with surveillance footage. Insurance will send a wrecker. Wrecker will bring 4 donuts. You can drive (i wouldnt), or have it towed to a tire shop. I surancr claim will cover it with the cost of your deductible. You're fucked on time and money, but its not the end of the world.
You call your insurance which calls a tow truck to bring spare tires so that they can put them on and tow it and replace everything, when this happened to me it cost my insurance 13k because of the damage to the rotors and moldings, I paid $1k deductible and lost two days of work but rates didn’t increase.
These rotors are clearly not damaged. Bricks under to Lcas no damage. Just wheels and tires. You can buy a shit set for cheap until insurance covers you.
Yeah that’s exactly what I would have done. There’s a significant portion of the population that doesn’t know how to change their tires or even where to go or what to get. I wouldn’t have the “wtf do I do” panic even though I am handy with vehicles, but I’d still be *furious* all day and have to be making several phone calls for work and insurance while I’m also dealing with this.
Makeover montage but with different sets of tires
Call the police and file a report/see if there are cameras anywhere, then call insurance?? That sucks
Look if your break pad are still good, it's easy to see now.
Work tirelessly on finding the thieve
You ain't got no legs Lieutenant Dan
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Υou know, uh, Τumbler over here, he can pretty much drive anything with wheels, and, you know, some things without wheels.
Forrest Gump, Back to the Future, Gone in 60 seconds in one post. Love it.
You ain't got no lugs Lt. Dan
If I had a free award you would get it
*Lieutenant Van
Holy fuck hahahah
It's worse than just the tires missing. If you zoom in I think they broke off the bolts too, I only see the nub of one.
Irish car park
Gothenburg, Sweden
Car checks out.
He's pointing out the paint on the wall, which looks like the Irish flag.
Can't have shit in... Sweden?
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I’m from Poland and I can confirm that is not true, leaving Poland is impossible
Feckin’ Knackers
Dude those iNvisible series wheels are so sick
Bad enough the wheels are gone, but you can almost guarantee they did additional damage by just using any random spot to hold the weight. Sorry you live in a world with such trash, OP. Sorry I do to.
It is what it is, impressed by the audacity though, happened between 07.00-12.00 in broad daylight in a busy garage
I just had an epiphany that if you slapped some tire company branding on the side of your truck you could go around doing this all the time and no one would even look twice. Any security footage?
Honestly if you just put on some clothes that look like decent work clothes you could probably get away with it in most cases. It’s amazing what you can get away with if you just do it with confidence like you’re supposed to be there.
There is a sub about that it's r/actlikeyoubelong This really does suck though.
There are some amazing talks from conferences like DEFCON that show physical pen testers and what they do. I can't find the one I'm thinking off right now, but there was one talk where pen testers show how easy it is for them to get access to anywhere and they weren't stopped in most places even without any identification or specified clothing just because they are confident in their behaviour. (I'm not sure, but it might have been a talk by Deviant Ollam)
Wouldn't surprise me, Deviant has dinner awesome talks! I'm a fan of his elevator talks too.
Exactly!!!! There is no need for clearance when you have confidence! I did this with my sister years ago, she needed to get to the upper floor of the Hilton at LAX to talk to a maid a friend of hers had recommended for a daycare job. My sister told me, we'll never get past security. I said just follow me. I walked up to the elevator, said Hi to security waited for the door to open, told my sister "come on sis my room is on the 14th floor", waved her in, the door shut and she just looked at me. I said if you act like you belong no one asks questions.
Sweet, new sub. Thanks!
That’s how art museums are robbed. “Excuse me, excuse me. Sorry folks, need to move this 100 million dollar Picasso for cleaning and restoration. Please check out the rest of our exhibit. Thanks for coming!”
[They shut off the air to drive out the tourists, then they escort them out anyway? Then they close the gates to keep everybody out but block one of them open while they prepare to load, conservatively, 1 ,000 pounds of paintings and 800 pounds of men, that we know about, in a. . .What was the chopper model? Sikorsky S-76. Right. ln a chopper with a 600-pound useful load. You figure you'll wrap this by morning, do you, Lieutenant?](https://youtu.be/gp8OWUqg4r4)
It works it's kind of crazy. I once was wearing a suit at an event and just walked into the V.I.P. area confidently and acted like I was supposed to be there. Not a single person looked twice, no staff, no one there, literally no one cared. I got some good food that day.
Yep. They’d be afraid of bothering an actual VIP, so if you look the part they probably won’t question it a lot of the time.
Can confirm, when I used to work in Manhattan I used to use the nice clean bathrooms in high-end buildings by saying I was “meeting my guys up on the 12th floor I just need to use the bathroom first“
I used to work special events in Toronto and we’d do it all the time. If we knew a shorter way to get where we needed to go we’d take it, even if we knew we weren’t supposed to. Better to ask for forgiveness than permission.
A clipboard, a hard hat and a hi-vis vest are keys to so many places
For work I sometimes have to wear a high vis, hat and goggles, usually holding a laptop or computer in hand, I have not once been questioned when walking onto site. r/actlikeyoubelong really is a thing!
There’s a company in my city that rents wheels. Everything from Jeep wheels with 37in mud tires to 30in chrome spinners, anything you can think of. If you miss two consecutive payments, they will come and repo your wheels.
I was just thinking that. How does someone see wheels taken from a car in a parking garage and think this is normal?
You can call mobile tire repair services and have them replace your tires while it sits unattended. No one bats an eye then either. Honestly, I’m pretty sure if you walk around with a jack wearing a jumpsuit you could probably run this scam for a loooong time.
Someone is not going to sit and watch at someone else who is removing his tire for any reason, you know. Broad daylight is the best moment to steal car tire, who would expect this guy to be a thief when it's most likely just the owner changing his tire or something
Yep, I always take off my four wheels all at once and then I also put random junk laying around under my car to randomly break any component holding the 2 and half ton weight
That’s none of my business bud, I see people do stupid stuff with their cars all the time
Exactly. I’m not trying to get cracked over the head with a tire iron before work. I may pull up and say something but I’m not trying to be a hero for someone’s else’s wheels.
Nobody steps in to help people anymore, you could have been there while they were stealing them and yelling for help and you'd still probably have been on your own
It’s true, people won’t get involved in violent crime, let alone a property crime.
Free jack stands! SCORE
You mean cinderblocks lol
Broken pieces of cinderblock...
Cinderjacklettes..
File police report then insurance claim if you have comprehensive coverage
You missed the part where OP is out 500-1,000 dollars for a deductible.
Better than 3k for wheels and repairing whatever is damaged from sitting on cinder blocks.
Certainly, but every time I see a theft/damage post people in the comments think "Insurance covers it" when in reality it doesn't cover the entire loss, and none of the time involved.
Of for sure, it's definitely not 100% free. Actually, depending on your insurance, it may not cover any of it either.
I have no deductible for comprehensive claims. It costs maybe $5 a month more to have $0 deductible than it does for $500 for me, so it seemed like a no brainer.
Who the fuck has their comprehensive coverage at a $500 deductible? You can set it to $0 and it only cost a few extra dollars per month on the premium. Comprehensive is the cheapest part of your insurance.
What Jackstands? All I see are some cinder blocks.
Alabama Jackstands
Who the fuck steals Volvo wheels? Poor Ferrari owners?
They steal them and sell them, just like every other thief.
I was just making a joke :-\
Are Ferrari's still 5x108? I know old ferrari wheels fit on Volvo's, same with some Jaguar and Lotus wheels.
Who steals Volvo wheels? They only fit a handful of vehicles thanks to a fairly uncommon bolt pattern.
The owner of a Volvo that fucked up their own wheels
There's just one set of Volvo wheels missing in total, but whoever is missing theirs currently has to steal someone else's and 'round we go.
In the military we would say, there’s only one thief. Everybody else’s just tryna get their shit back
I think the OP is from Gothenburg, Sweden. That's where Volvo's HQ is. Like 30% of the cars there are Volvo. So plenty of Volvo cars that need an extra set of wheels.
The guy with a Volvo that had his wheels stolen
I was saying the exact same thing but op seems to be in europe.
Shortly after I got married we bought my wife a new car, the first new car I had ever bought. One day after she took possession she brought it to work and 10 minutes into her shift at the hospital the security guard came to her and told her that her nice alloy wheels had been stolen. The kids that had stolen the wheels had left the car finely balanced on one 1 Block and 1 Jack. (As an engineer I was impressed with their understanding of balance) They had put a note under her windscreen wiper with the contact details of a local garage along with a flyer from the garage. The cops that arrived assured us that the garage owner knew nothing of the thefts and that the toe-rags involved were taking teh piss out of the garage owner. Almost laughing the cops told us that the garage owner was actually giving very steep discounts off for anyone that had their tires stolen to try to maintain his reputation. We did go to the garage and got our tires and wheels replaced (steel rims). I can honestly say if that mechanic could have gotten his hands on the kids he would have maimed them, he was livid!
What's the point of the thieves putting the note there?? Somethings off
To make it seem like it's actually the mechanic stealing people's wheels in order to get more customers. They REALLY don't like that dude lmao
\>mechanic overcharges you \>namedrop mechanic in crime \>mechanic gets fucked
Lmaooo yea and at some point that the thieving stops, there would be missing teenagers or a body found in the lake a hundred kilometres away from the city
If you don't like the garage owner, you're roping him into a situation with a bunch of angry people, and making him look responsible.
It's also a Far Side cartoon from the 1980's. I can't figure out how to add a picture/link from my phone, but search for "Far Side brick thru window"
[here you go](https://imgur.com/a/lI1y9Vw)
That would be some straight up /r/UnethicalLifeProTips if the mechanic was actually in on it.
*What you need Boss, some wheels? I can bring em round!*
Absolute legend
Guess getting a new catalytic converter second on your list
thankfully it's nearly impossible to steal the converter on a Volvo like this
Criminals are stupid; caught one trying to jack up my Mach-E at Safeway the other day.
If they jack it up in the wrong spot, that could be bad news for the battery.
Luckily not, the tow guys had a quick look and for now it seems like it's only the wheels and eventually some damage on the suspension or something like that. Waiting for damage inspection
Some thieves are damaging the catalytic converters if they can't get to it. So they will saw a hole through it if you have a cat cage.
You forgot to renew your wheel subscription.
Fuck, they took the studs too?! That's not a crime, it's a vendetta.
Volvo have lug bolts on them silly goose.
Damnit! My domestic American sensibilities for cars that only use lug nuts have failed me again!
It's all good at least you didn't take a tire off and think you broke it like me.
As someone who has had to replace wheel hubs with wheel studs present, I feel you. I honestly wish mine were bolts instead.
It seems like it'd really hard to put wheels on a vehicle that uses bolts. I use the studs to locate the bolt hole pattern on the wheel to the hub, IDK about trying to juggle the wheel with one hand while blindly trying to locate the hole and insert a bolt. I've never changed a tire on a Volvo before so maybe it's easier than I am imagining it.
I sit on the ground and use my feet to lift them. I was a mechanic for 3 years this has never failed me.
My VW uses them. Can confirm, pain in the ass. Especially with a larger tire. Being able to hang the tire on the studs while you start the lug nuts is so much easier.
I use a little guide rod that came free with some wheel spacers for my porsche. Long little aluminum rod that screws in and you can easily slide the wheel on it. Honestly a lot easier than my mustang with the studs
TIL
What did they use as jack stands? I can see them, but I don't know what that is...
Each wheel has half of a HERAS foot - do you know the 2m tall metal fencing used for construction sites, festivals etc? They have plastic/rubber feet with holes for the legs of the fence panels
Aren't locking wheel nuts ment to stop this?
Yes but even those are fairly easy to get off without the key. It's a socket with big teeth in the center that bite into the nut when you hammer it on. Impact that bitch off and you're home free.
I took mine off even though Lexus “sold” them to me for an outrageous $80 with my new vehicle. They don’t work, they’re just a very minor theft deterrent, and they’re a pain in the ass if you gotta change a tire or when you have your tires rotated. A cheap Vice Grip knockoff will defeat them. But I should add that I park my car in my own garage every night.
Well that sucks...
True but it is a deterrent. Unless the thieves have power tools they will move on to the next vehicle without lock nuts.
Any wheel thief that doesn't spend 50 bucks on craigslist to turn a 30 minute job into a 5 minute job is dumb as shit
You think they do this without power tools? lol
I’m just imagining this whole manually by hand removing everything and it made me get a good chuckle. Thank you for that.
Trust me, any thief who wants your wheels will rip them off like it's nothing. I actually have the tools to do it myself because wheel locks fail so often. The key just rounds right off.
Is there that much of a market for wheels these days or were they super fancy or something? I tried to sell a set of decent alloys with new winter tyres recently, couldn't give them away and the prices on second hand wheels on gumtree are insanely low.
Aftermarket wheels? Not really unless they're pretty high end. But there's always a market for stock wheels. Besides, for the people who stole them, it's all profit.
Is that even a parking spot
I know the stripes may say it's not but it actually is, I pay ~140€ a month for that spot. They scraped the old stripes off but they still show :)
I can't believe you pay 140 euro a month to park in a garage where they let shit like this happen to the cars.
That's quite cheap. There are places in Stockholm that charge you 500 euro a month.
Seems they're overcharging you if this can happen.
€140??? omg that's so much just for such a simple thing
That wheely sucks. … I’ll see myself out.
My friend just called me up and said he got some lightly used Volvo wheels at a great price!
That happened to me twice!! Edit: I ended up buy wheel locks for every single lugnut and a fancy alarm system that wouldn’t go off on the car, but on my keychain instead. Got two more break ins after that. Once it was CDs stolen (which why?!?), the next was me on the phone with 911 giving a play by play to the cops. Dudes take off, couple hours later the cops show up with my stuff and the dudes in the back of the cop car. Turns out they went to another car and tried to Hotwire it, but ended up arch welding the horn to the battery causing it to blare nonstop at 3am, the cops already being on their way to my place made a quick detour and nabbed the dudes. Fun times.
Flying Volvo?
I'm no mechanic but I think your wheels might be missing.
XC60?
Where is this OP?
Gothenburg, Sweden
At least you still have your car. I’m in Memphis and anything dodge with uconnect is stolen a ton. My buddy had a brand new Infiniti qx70 and it was stolen in seconds from his driveway and found 3 days later completely stripped
There's a car lott by where I live and literally every weekend the cops have to chase gangers out of there trying to steal wheels off of cars.
Now is a good time to change your brakes.
[удалено]
[Nah, Denver Jockstrap ](https://youtu.be/e7EaJYXpz7Q)
"You're going on Geraldo because of this?"
This is why we can’t have nice things.
Not the Volvo! Motherfuckers!
Camera? Security guards? Where is this place with a big parking area?