Theft from campers

[gatvol]

Hi

I have never owned a camper before - but are they targets for thieves pls ? Presumably campsites are safe due to the presence of loads of people ? But what about when you park up elsewhere ?

We are about to buy a pre-reg Cali and are wondering what to do about the standard fit radio. I am always nervous about having a flash aftermarket stereo given theft risk and associated aggro. The boring looking/ odd shaped factory fit ones are much lower risk in this regard

I would have thought that a smart modern camper is likely to have all sorts of goodies inside like a laptop, dvd player, ipod .... hence might a "nice" looking stereo that could attract unwanted attention be more trouble than it is worth ?

Thanks

 

[stephen]

I've also pondered this conundrum, as I was also thinking of fitting a aftermarket multimedia system with GPS. Volkswagen can fit one for £995 (Kenwood) as I'm waiting for the rival of my new California, due to be delivered on the 2nd March, I never ordered the Volkswagen version has this was rather expensive at £2000, and also I assume, as you have surmised would be rather a magnet for the thieves out there only too willing to take a chopper to the dashboard to get the said item out! making rather a mess of most of the vehicle in the process, so I think now I am still thinking of fitting a multimedia system by the Kenwood company but most probably, the' DNX-9280BT' unit which is selling for £1079 with a few upgrades on the Volkswagen fitted unit, and most importantly you can remove the fascia unit, which will make it rather more unattractive for our light fingered friends out there. I also wouldn't want to draw attention to myself what one displays inside the vehicle, and I've always thought that electronic gadgets seem to attract the sort of people nowadays, that aspire to smash and grab. especially in a lonely little beauty spots where these sort of vehicles will be spending most of their time outside organised campsites.
But on the other hand if you worry about all this stuff too much one can become paranoid in my opinion, and you will not enjoy the freedom that these vehicles hopefully can deliver, as long as you've got a decent tracker system and also a good insurance company I would suggest maybe we shouldn't worry about such things too much. it's like everything in this day and age, you just have to be careful not to leave things on show, anywhere when leaving vehicles especially in unknown areas

I personally haven't decided which tracker system to fit, the Cobra system 5 seemed a good unit, but it seems nowadays professional criminals go around with low loader car transporters, scooping up any high price vehicle that they wish, in broad daylight in a lot of cases, and don't seem to care about who's watching them, Iv'e been told by the police, that they have systems to jam GSM signals and also GPS before they move the vehicle! so the Cobra system may not fare very well considering this. so the original tracker company has developed a anti-jamming system on their top end trackers with VHF, GSM, and GPS, which I feel is a very comprehensive system, even if the thieves put the vehicles inside underground car parks or transport containers, the VHF would still operate, hopefully notifying the police in the vicinity, even if they combat the GSM transmitter. So I think myself, the upgraded original tracker system seems the safer bet, considering recent advances.posting.php?mode=reply&f=8&t=712#

 

[Andy]

Volkswagen version has this was rather expensive at £2000

I had the VW RNS510 fitted for considerably less than £2000 by HazyDayz

http://www.vwcruise.com/index.html

I don't think this unit looks any more inviting to a thief than the Kenwood system & can be fully controlled by the MFSW.

 

[stephen]

I totally agree Andy that both the Kenwood system that Volkswagen fit, 'I think it's the 5000 series systems' and also the Volkswagens very own 510 units have both the same possibilities of being stolen, as both the units cannot be extracted in any normal way, and just have a 4 digit code to safeguard their removal from the vehicle by thieves, as far as I know, but I've heard through the grapevine, that this has no consequence for the determined thief, because they know how to get the codes, on the other hand the updated top of the range Kenwood system DNX-9280BT, list price £2000 can be purchased for substantially less e.g; £1079.00, and most probably less if you want to trawl the Internet, and has more features ;TV tuners , Garmin satnav etc etc, all the usual stuff, and most importantly of all, as far as I'm concerned, the whole front of the unit can be removed,

And I don't think any thief in their right mind would bother with the rather uninviting metal plate, where the once rather nifty screen once was, because I would imagine even if they knew what unit it was from the metal plate, clearly these screens on most of these systems are rather expensive,

Thanks for the link Andy. These prices seem much better than the Volkswagen dealers, but not forgetting their all plus VAT, which bumps the price up somewhat, if one is not VAT registered.
I suppose if I was very desperate for a cheap deal, I might mosey over to eBay where the 510 series multimedia systems seem to be quite prevalent, to knock down prices? especially second-hand! might Which makes one think where might all these units could be coming from? Anyway thanks Andy for replying.


http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/items/__vw+rn ... 459_228459

 

[Andy]

Yes there seems to be a constant supply of the RNS510 on ebay. I'm not sure I would buy from there, to much scope for getting not what you expected, not latest firmware or even old unit. Not to mention unit not even turning up. A lot of money to potentially loose.