Morris Minor Owners Club

This is GOOD news!!

But its near Christmas Chris and car theft is rife around this time according to our local Bobby

It could be that after the problems with the site people just don't bother coming on here as much, hopefully that's not the reason though.

irmscher wrote:But its near Christmas Chris and car theft is rife around this time according to our local Bobby

Must ALL be cautious always....

I wouldn't have thought your average car thief would target a Minor and I'm not sure that your typical Minor owner (Yes I know I've said, in other posts, that I dislike stereotyping) would want to buy a stolen car. I suppose a car wreck could be passed off as a good car and sold but again, the market is more limited.

Blaketon wrote:I wouldn't have thought your average car thief would target a Minor and I'm not sure that your typical Minor owner (Yes I know I've said, in other posts, that I dislike stereotyping) would want to buy a stolen car. I suppose a car wreck could be passed off as a good car and sold but again, the market is more limited.

Well given that the 'Stolen' Forum has 118 Topics covering approximately 10 years, even allowing for the fact that there might potentially be a couple of duplicate posts, that's about 1 a month.
Now those cars I would suggest are targeted because they are a snip to get into and take away due to the limits of their 1940s era security methods.
All they have to do is steal a car and then give it the identity of one that has remained 'live' on the DVLA but is actually non existent.

You can't even trust the V5 details a lot of the time due to the number of Owners who neglect to inform DVLA that the engine has not only been replaced but actually upgraded from perhaps an 803 to a 948 or even a 1098.

My car had both drop glass and a quarter light from a donor vehicle, I know this because they were etched with the other car's reg number. They were possibly moved across complete with the doors. Who knows?
So I looked up the donor vehicle and found it to still be live on the DVLA site, just not taxed or SORN's for almost 20 years.
So if you're prepared to go through a bit of hassle over getting some paperwork generated by DVLA, it's easy to clone a Moggie and then auction it off on Fleabay.
When I brought mine, I visited all the ones I bid on. Speaking with their owners, it's amazing how many people are bidding 'sight unseen'. If so many are prepared to buy a car without seeing it, I don't see justification for your assumed morals of a 'typical Minor Owner'...

This started off as a positive thread, as no cars have been reported stolen, but I’m sensing just a tad of negativity here - Minor owners have dubious morals, and their cars are getting nicked, but people aren’t posting about it... Imagine how terrible it would be if there were lots of posts reporting stolen cars too!!!

Apparently the Minor is one of the easiest to clone and at the moment fetching a premium due to traders with over inflated prices

liammonty wrote:This started off as a positive thread, as no cars have been reported stolen, but I’m sensing just a tad of negativity here - Minor owners have dubious morals, and their cars are getting nicked, but people aren’t posting about it... Imagine how terrible it would be if there were lots of posts reporting stolen cars too!!!

I don't think there's a 'tad of negativity', nor do I make the connection which you appear to have seen that "Minor owners have dubious morals, and their cars are getting nicked, but people aren’t posting about it".

So there has been nothing posted as stolen for 5 months. Perhaps that is a record, perhaps not; it's a good news story, but it depends on so many factors, not least if the owner know about the forum. There's plenty of people who don't join forums.

And as I indicated earlier, the average, from the forum topics posts, is 1 a month. Since some months appear to have 2 or 3 cars stolen, then a gap of 5 months is just part of the circle of life (damn, a Disney reference!).

So anyway, has anyone got any tips for immobilisers or trackers

I said I am not keen on stereotyping but I still maintain that there are more people (By number and proportion) in the market for a knocked off modern Audi or BMW, than a Minor. Whether the eBay buyers' apparent laxity was due to innocence or something else, is open to question but I am sure innocence will account for some of it. I'm new to eBay and recently used it to sell an unused portable garage but I think I'd draw the line at buying a car unseen. When I bought my Minor, I had joined MMOC and got one from the ads in there. That was in 2003 and I seem to recall I had a check done on the vehicle. I had viewed a few that weren't what I wanted and my next trip was to have been a trip to ESM, to see what they had.

I wouldn't openly post details of security devices, on a forum that anyone can view but your own secret devices can be effective, as they are unknown. Suffice to say that if a thief starts a car and it breaks down shortly after, when they are in the flow of traffic, they tend to bail out and leave it.

Should ALWAYS check the "numbers" on all vehicles.
Sadly "ringing" is SO easy to do on a Minor - ie a chop-topped 2dr can turned into a factory convertable in minutes - regretfully, the emphasis on the details stamped onto the VIN plate is played on too muçh.

Although, BL LCVs can be tricky....but checks will confirm whether yay/nay.

Plussss...we have body number's to guide us now, therefore making life more difficult for those up to no good...