Bad Badger Attempted Theft

Well, I've had a couple of eventful days following an attempted theft of our motorhome from the front drive.

On Monday, Hay happened to be upstairs and spotted someone with their head buried under the bonnet of the van. She rushed out, calling me, and confronted the chap as he was about to get into his car and leave. He shouted, in a southern Irish accent, that he was sorry and thought the van was for sale, which didn't explain why or how he's managed to lift the bonnet without using the bonnet catch inside the van, which was locked.

As I came out he was speeding down our drive, but Hay had the presence of mind to take a photo of him and his car on her phone. She wishes she'd had a baseball bat too.

I checked the van over and found nothing untoward, but decided to move it round to the car park at the back of the house. However, on starting it, I noticed the immobiliser light was on. I didn't know exactly what was wrong, as the van did start. 

I drove it round the back and turned the ignition off, but the engine kept running. "Strange," thinks I, and so I looked under the bonnet. The chap had broken off the immobiliser chip and run a wire from the battery's positive terminal to the fuel pump solenoid, thus bypassing the immobiliser.

The intention was obviously to leave the van with the immobiliser bypass in place and return during the night to steal it. It was simply pure luck that Hay spotted him from upstairs. Given the van was booked in for a new set of tyres today, the bastard would have been better waiting till Thursday.

Just in case he returned during the night, I put No.1 Son's car in front of the 5 bar gate to block the car park entrance. I suggested to Hay that we leave the van where it was on the front and slept in it with some weapons and give the bastard a nasty surprise.

Anyway, the police were called and we were told to expect someone to arrive the same day for a statement, but no-one turned up. In the meantime, I posted photos of the bloke and his car (which was untaxed) on a local community Facebook page as a warning. Yesterday, a policeman from an intelligence unit phoned Hay after having seen the Facebook post (which had been shared many hundreds of time) saying the case had mysteriously been closed, despite no-one coming to take her statement, which he found confusing. He told her that the car in question was under investigation in other motorhome theft related enquiries and the chap was probably part of a gang - had he gotten away with it, the Bad Badger would probably have been on the Fishuard ferry to Eire, faster than you can say Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, and been trundling around Eire on Irish plates by Thursday. He said Fiat Ducatos were favousite, as they're easy to get into. He then said he'd cancel the case cancellation and arrange for someone to call, either yesterday or today. No-one called yesterday.

Hay then contacted the insurance, who told us to contact their approved repair garage. On contacting them, she was asked to bring the van to their premises. She told them this was not possible, as it was immobile (I'd taken the jump wire off and couldn't figure out how to replace it on the mangled bit). They said they'd send a recovery vehicle, but we told them there was no way in hell they'd get a recovery vehicle down our back lane and we simply needed a mechanic or auto-electrician to come round, assess the damage to the immobiliser and replace it. Being geared up for accident damage, this was beyond their level of competence and we were obviously speaking to a 'computer says no' person.

"Bugger it," thinks I, "what's the point of insurance? I'll pay for the damage myself and not risk the no-claims." Duly called a contact in the trade, who came down, replaced the wire (he knew where to connect it again), and drove the van to his garage in Frampton Cotterell. Paul, the owner of the garage, said there would be 2 choices - repair it without the immobiliser or, the more expensive option, install a new immobiliser. 

Now, an immobiliser is usually insisted upon by insurers; however, it transpires Hay never mentioned the van having one when she insured it, which is probably why we found the insurance a tad steep. Dilemma - installing a new immobiliser is expensive, but they obviously can be bypassed, so what's the point? Much better is a visual deterrent, such as a massive Denver boot, a steering wheel lock and one of those devices that lock the pedals together. Even a tracker is only effective after the fact and can be ripped off if discovered. I think we'll go for the cheaper option.

A friend recommended locking the driver's seat into the reverse position with a padlock, which is a neat idea, but it's only the passenger seat that swivels in our van.

We're still waiting for the police to show up.