2 4 wheelers stolen. I'm pissed.

Ugh. It just ain't right for this to happen to you again.

Sorry to hear that Dave. I hope they catch them.

Wonder if the cowards know that Texas is a conceal carry state?

Dave, I am sorry to hear about your theft. I hope the bastards are caught.

Sorry to hear this... Hopefully you had the VIN's to give to law enforcement so they can be entered into NCIC as stolen. That'll help in possibly finding them.

Yeah, I have titles and am insured.

My place is very excluded and not very many people even know it is there. They came in through adjoining property. I keep(kept) the bikes about 150 yards from the house, back in the brush, with covers on. I don't leave the keys in them unless we are riding. They cut wire and tore down some fence from an adjoining property. I assume they hot wired them and went out some pretty rough land to get to the road about 1/8 mile. They cut wire there and, I guess, trailered them away. The owner of the adjoining property probably hasn't been to it in years.

They had to work at it but when these guys veins start itching for drugs, they don't mind a little sweat.

I'll have to replace them. Not having them is like a cowboy without a horse.

Not good at all but at least insurance may cover your expenses.

I doubt that it could be done by some drug addicts. They prefer easier "works" - robbing a person, breaking the door and stealing something or anything similar. This sounds like a planned operation. Sure, it isn't as hard as robbing a bank but anyway it's much harder than coming and stealing a showel and 3 jars of dog food.

Somehow, someway I think they knew they were there. Sounds like too much planning happened for it to be a "lookee what I found" type of situation.

Yeah, I figure they had been previously spotted. We've had an awful lot of oilfield activity and they bring in people from everywhere. Pipelines are in and I figure a lot of those are going home. I doubt that the bikes are still local.

To find them, the perps would have had to been on the adjoining property. The electric company just put up a new transmission line across his place. That's more transients.

I'm pissed too.

Geeze Dave. That's awful. How many is that?

When we were having all the problems with the druggies about 8-10 years ago, I put up lots of trail cams (they were 35 mm then), and I put in a four-camera 7-day VCR system. I also put in a security system that would call me if any of the sensors went off. They were for motion, glass breakage, smoke/fire, sound, and sorts and windows. It would tell me what kind of sensor went off, and then I could listen to microphones in the house.

There are much better systems today, especially if you have electricity. The cameras are wireless and have good battery life. They can be monitored via the Internet. The recorders use a computer, or computer hard drive, and will record for days. Such a system may also reduce your insurance.

Sorry to hear this Dave. Makes me mad when I hear about scumbags thieves. I told my brother recently...once we get the cabin done, we might as well accept that it probably won't be "if" we are hit, just when. I see ATV's on CraigsList that say "no title - cash only". Makes ya wonder. So many "bad guys" these days. We need to get a rope!

Sorry to here about this, but like said it is becoming a common occurrence...A good friend of mine had his stolen between deer seasons last year...

We had our gator stolen a few months ago from here at work...

I truly think alot of it happens when kids that have no parental guidance get let loose on the public...Most times the ATV's get trashed and left for junk...

We see more problems around here during the summer when kids are out between school years.

I'm going to buy a couple of used ones but they damn sure have to have a title.

Dave that is horrible and I am sorry to hear that. I hope they are caught quick and forcefully

"Damn thieves" sums it well!

Concealed carry, nothing. I wonder if they know it's a shoot on site state!

Sorry to hear this, Dave. That really sucks. I worry about that to some extent at our place since we don't live there, but we do have the advantage of one very watchful neighbor who lives in direct visual site of our building. Makes all the difference.

When I get home later today I'm installing hidden kill switches in my tractor, UTV, and lawn tractor. There have been stories in our local newspaper that these items have really become hot items for stealing in rural areas.

I will have to pick your brain about that concept, Ken. Sounds like a great idea. Of course, if the would be thieves can't get what they came for, they may get ticked off and just end up trashing everything to the point you'd wish they had just stolen a few big ticket items that insurance should replace anyway. I do like the idea, though.

I'm sorry to hear that Dave. Unattended property theft is running rampant in the US right now.

If they were newer 4 wheelers then I would let any ATV dealers near you know that they were stolen. They can input the VIN into their data base. Then if someone tries to service the ATV at a dealer the VIN number will be flagged.

This process however has not helped recover my Polarius (or any of our other property that was stolen) but at least I feel somewhat better about it.

If people want your stuff bad enough they will take it. Period. It my case they pushed down a barbed wire fence and drove a truck on to my property and towed the ranger away (crossing over several adjoining properties). Chains, locks, locking cables were all cut in the process. Security were cameras stolen.

It's all very disheartening.

Todd

To the best of my knowledge, you can disconnect the fuel pump without a problem. On older diesels, not getting fuels to the injectors would require you to bleed the injectors. The newer ones have protection for this. Thus, you could add a hidden weather resistant switch in the fuel pump electrical line. It will probably start and run for a short period of time, until the fuel in the line is consumed. You could also add a hidden switch in the transmission interlock switch line. But, depending how they hot wire to start the tractor, it could potentially still be started.

I'd need to see a wiring diagram of your 4-wheeler. What brand and model is it? I may be able to download a wiring diagram.

An acquaintance of mine was hit not long ago out at his weekend place. The thieves came in, hooked up to HIS trailer, then used HIS backhoe to pick up and load a woodsplitter, 4-wheeler, and a zero turn riding mower (A big 61" cut deal). They didn't secure the splitter very well, so it came off the trailer and overturned before they left his property.....but the rest of it was gone.

No offense to our law enforcement friends, but my experience is they are handcuffed by rules and regs and slaves to paperwork, trust me they want to do more. Even if they apprehend the d-bags, this will likely only add to their rap sheet and they will be back at it soon enough

sorry to hear dave. did you get anything on game cameras? the putrid feelings of violation are tough to deal with, i've been through it too.

Dave, I'm so sorry to hear about your loss! Insurance or not, it's just a sickening feeling to be/feel violated like that.

With todays technology you would think a GPS tracking chip/device of some sort would be (reasonably) available. Of course hidden and/or undetectable.

FWIW, If even just as a deterrent, my brother works for a printing company and it sparked an idea of having him print some stickers with the following type of notice:

ATTENTION: GPS TRACKING DEVICE ATTACHED
or
THIS VEHICLE IS EQUIPPED WITH A GPS TRACKING DEVICE - YOU BETTER HOPE LAW ENFORCEMENT TRACKS YOU DOWN BEFORE I DO!

Well, something along those lines.

If it prevents just ONE theft, it would be worth the low cost of a sticker.

Keith

Yep! Summer is when all the BS happens around my place too!

Been scarfing up a bunch of .300 Win Mag's for target shooting. Can't find .223's any place locally, and if you could, they would be more expensive.

.44 mag's, 60 rounds for 140+ bucks. Not the plinking stuff tho, cause ya can't find it!

Ammo is scarce around here, but you can usually find the magnum stuff for rifles.

About a year and a half ago I was having problems with a neighbor kid breaking into my back shop stealing beer...I have reported it several times and the cops did nothing...

Finally a train horn came in at work that had a 12 volt switch on it...Plumbed it up on the fridge..Not 10 minutes after my wife took this video he was in there...Ended up getting pictures on the trail cam a our local coroner saw him running from my garage...

They had like 7 judgement against him at the county court house..He ended up get 3 years...Kinda glad I didn't see where he went after I saw him run out the door...I was a little more than MAD!!!

Best rig I've seen in a long time! Love that idea!

Not the 4 wheeler so much, Ken. Frankly, I'd be happy if it got stolen so I could buy a better one! I'm thinking about my tractor. Even though I keep all my vehicles in a locked building, I know a determined thief would make it in if he wanted. The tractor is most important thing to me to have disabled because if it's disabled, the other stuff isn't coming out of the building due to the space the tractor occupies.

Todd -- have you thought about asking one of your clients how best to steal equipment like this? From that, we probably could come up with a number of ways to circumvent their escapades.

Awesome. He got sentenced to 3 years but how many did he actually serve? You know how that is.

On a funny note when I was a kid there was a guy who was really got at imitating sounds and even had a record. Can't remember his name.One of his favorite things was to imitate an approaching train complete with the whistle from a speaker mounted on his car -- out in the country where there were not tracks or trains. Said it was amazing how many lights went on in the surrounding houses with people trying to figure where the train was.

The horn and cameras are probably a good idea.

About a year ago, near where I grew up, a fellow and his wife had been having their resort tavern burglarized regularly. They started staying in an apartment above the tavern, and put in some silent alarms. As the alarm went off one night, the owner went partway down the stairwell to see two individuals taking out cases of liquor. It was dark, and he ending up shooting and killing his nephew, and seriously wounding a neighbor boy. It was a very tragic case that tore the family and community apart.

There are no good answers.

It's a brilliant idea, Ken, but I don't represent guilty people so I'm sure none of them could help.

When I was growing up, Dad had an electric cut-out installed on his cars. It would allow the car to be started, and run for about 30 seconds, then it killed the ignition. Slow blow fuse or something like that. I don't know how it'd work with todays computerized vehicles tho.

That train horn was a great idea!!!

One of my neighbors has a game camera that transmits images to his PC 70 miles away. I'm going to look into that.

They are nice.. And pricey, prolly cheaper than 2 ATV's though..

I so badly want a train horn now.

Good on you...how does one find one of those?

I heard the other day he is going to be getting out soon.. So if It is true it put him in for about a year and a half...

You can pick up cheap ones at truck chrome shops for just over $100 bucks... Real ones will run you quite abit more, like in the $500+ range used..

For what it's worth, prison sentences (not to be confused with jail sentences) typically afford day for day credit while incarcerated. That means you can cut the length of the sentence in half to get the actual time that would be served provided the person didn't lose any good time due to violations while inside.

As well, if the sentence is indeterminate, meaning a term of 1 to 3 years (or whatever), they must serve at least 1 before being eligible for parole, but could serve as much as the full 3 if they lost good time credit.

In the case you're talking about, serving 1.5 years pretty much means he did his entire sentence and there will not likely be any parole period upon his release.

I need a train horn for my motorcycle Boy just think of all the new words I would learn from the neighbors

I wired my ignition coil through the dash light dimmer switch...turn down the rheostat..no primary power.

And now we know your secret!

I wonder how that works when he dims the dash lights at night? Mine in the car are about turned down all the way.

When I replace the bikes, and I will replace them, I'm not going to mess with electrical devices. I'm going to chain them together. And, they will have to steal my cutting torch to steal them.

Well, maybe I had better think of something else.

Just take your cutting torch home and store it there instead of at your farm! You'll have 'em licked that way!

.

Yeah. Probably won't work. Years ago I bought a set of 36-inch "bolt" cutters. It is amazing how many times I've put them to good use in the last 30 years.

I got them from one of the liquidation places, so they were pretty inexpensive. I've cut half-inch chain with them. I regularly use them to cut half-inch rebar and large bolts -- but those things are are a lot softer than chain.

If it's just the primary power to start the engine, then once it's running it shouldn't matter?