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I have the world's most effective anti-theft device, there is research on this, in my car and this device saved me thousands on the retail price of the vehicle.
by austincheney 8y ago
I have the world's most effective anti-theft device, there is research on this, in my car and this device saved me thousands on the retail price of the vehicle.
The mystery device is a manual transmission.
- quickthrower2 8y agoThat doesn't work in the UK! Automatic is for wimps or luxury cars. At least when I lived there a fe years ago.
- tonyedgecombe 8y agoIn the UK you need to buy a pink car, they are the least likely to be stolen.
- TheOtherHobbes 8y agoMy car was in for servicing a few weeks ago, and the garage gave me a hot purple metallic car with tinted dark windows, because that was now their official dealership courtesy car, as supplied by Car Company Head Office. When I parked it around town, people were literally laughing at it. (And me for driving it, I guess.) According to the dealer, the car company were pitching at a young market. They might have been better off marketing it as an anti-theft system.
- brian_cunnie 8y agoI have a pink laptop cover for the same reason.
- EForEndeavour 8y agoThat's actually pretty smart. Even though it's much easier to remove a laptop cover than to repaint a car, a laptop thief is less likely to target the most brightly coloured, attention-grabbing laptop in the room.
- gbaygon 8y agoYour security device won't work in South America were 95% of all cars have manual transmissions and I think the same ratio applies to Europe.
- Abishek_Muthian 8y agoYou can safely include large part of Asia as well, in India automatic is still a luxury though semi-automatic models are cropping up in few entry level vehicles.
- vinay427 8y agoI'm not sure about the 95% statistic in Europe but it certainly won't last much longer now that over a third of cars sold in the UK are automatic and this number is only increasing. There's no practical benefit of a manual transmission anymore besides a small cost difference (and possibly slightly more reliability), and electrification will only hasten this change.
- gbaygon 8y agoYou may be right about the numbers in Europe but it certainly is the case in Italy where automatic cars are nowhere to be seen (except some luxury sedans). I’ll argue this is because is way more fun to drive a manual transmission.
- arethuza 8y agoAren't most Italian exotics DSGs these days?
- gbaygon 8y agoI wasn’t talking about high end italian cars, I was talking about cars most people use in Italy. Last time I was there I forgot my driving license and was traveling with a friend from the US, we had to rent an automatic Volvo S60 for twice the price of a manual VW or fiat (automatic is rare and in premium cars)
- enraged_camel 8y agoI, too, read the comments in the article. (You could at least give the original author credit, rather than shamelessly stealing the joke.)
- war1025 8y agoIt's a pretty standard joke.
- austincheney 8y agoI did not read the article comments :(
- hueving 8y agoThe original author was probably around the time automatic transmissions started becoming popular. How do we track that down?
- icelancer 8y agoMy 1997 Civic was stolen despite having a manual transmission that sometimes is faulty. I've also had two Honda del Sols stolen, both were stick shifts. Doesn't seem to help all that much.
- fowkswe 8y agoYou can start a manual transmission car by rolling it and popping the clutch - something you can’t do in an automatic.
- sandworm101 8y agoStill need to bypass the key. Modern electronic engine controls wont run with only a pushstart.
- rwbt 8y agoThe mid-late 90s Civics and Del Sols are highly sought after among Honda fans! The ones with B18 VTEC motors even more so. That's why your cars were stolen despite having a stick shift. It's even worse for the Honda CRX.
- mortenjorck 8y agoThis may make sense in the context of the enthusiast market, but I somehow doubt the average car thief is that tuned in to gearhead culture.
- URSpider94 8y agoYou’d be wrong. Car thieves aren’t stealing cars to re-sell them on a lot, they are stealing them for parts for unscrupulous buyers, and street racers are a great market. I used to own an Acura Integra. The rear spoiler was ripped off several times (carefully, so it could be re-attached to another car), and the car itself was stolen twice - the first time it was recovered in one piece, the second time it was a bare chassis without even wheels. The Integra motor had a 10,000 rpm redline and had a cult following among Honda enthusiasts. It could be retrofitted into any Civic.
- TylerE 8y agoDownside is if they try and fail, and cost you more $$ and headache than if they'd just stolen the thing.
- Broken_Hippo 8y agoIn the states, that is merely a deterrent. Most cars here are manual transmissions. If you cannot drive a manual, you have a special driver's license restriction stating that. Edit: I can't help but to comment that I had one better. I had a 1990's hatchback. The rear hatch didn't lock, but you had to do the right motions to open it lest it act locked. It was an automatic, but didn't have much "oomph". Finally, the handles to roll up the windows didn't stay on the doors. I stored them on the dashboard. (they would still roll up/down the windows, but would not stay).
- aetherson 8y agoWhat are "the states" in this context?
- IshKebab 8y agoProbably meant "outside the states"?
- thrower123 8y agoIt's really quite difficult to find a vehicle newer than say, 2000 that has a stick shift in the USA.
- rootusrootus 8y agoA normal vehicle, you mean. There are still a number of enthusiast models that have a manual option, or in some cases (e.g. WRX STI, or Camaro SS 1LE, to name a couple) only come with a manual. For appliance cars, manuals are rare indeed. I think the new G70 from Hyundai has a manual option, but I don't think it's on the higher end model. Unfortunately that's been a trend for quite a while -- when a company does offer a manual, it's never available with all the rest of the good options, you can only get it on a base trim.
- rootusrootus 8y agoThe United States
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- twblalock 8y agoI had an old Saab that locked the manual gearshift in reverse when the key was removed. It seemed like it would be fairly difficult to defeat that mechanism without disassembling or destroying the entire shifter.
- r00fus 8y agoYour car can and will still be parted out. Unless you also have a particularly undesirable and unpopular car.