Question for Drivers

I have two cars,

When I drive this I act normal.


Parking no worries, vandalism and theft are not high on the agenda.

But when I bring this out of its garage, I'm like a mother hen.

I don't really think theft or vandalism is an issue. Just don't keep valuables in sights. And I don't think people won't really damage your car intentionally. If they do, then just think it wouldve happened anyways.

But obviously, the 5 is quite a large car. You'll want to make sure you park it in adequately spaced areas so people don't bang it up by bumping into it, but its not really a big issue imo.

I used to fret about this constantly when I had a nice ride. Now my car is older than my kids and that's one worry I can cross off the list.

If I had a BMW 5 series I'd be more concerned about it getting damaged because it is such a big car than I would be concerned about people maliciously damaging or breaking in to it.

I'd also be concerned about the repair costs if anything broke.

Unless you're one of those guys that angle parks across 2 spaces, I wouldn't worry about it.

just don't worry about it, unless you live in a really bad area

I currently have a Porsche. I have previously had a Lotus and Jaguar. None of them were targets, either on the road or when parked outside in London...

I don't worry about it. I once owned a jeep (pre children days) and since it had a soft top it was impossible for me to secure it. I just lived with the fact that anyone could gain access to it exceedingly easy (unzip the side).

Why worry over something you have no control over. I didn't take chances but by the same token I didn't lose sleep over it either.

I be more worried about having a BMW and someone driving off with it using an unauthorised Key Programmer, to be honest. However I believe that all recent BMWs are now fine, and don't have this issue. The BBC reported the issue in their consumer affairs program, Watchdog last year.

It's simple: don't leave anything that can be easily stolen in plain view. If your car looks like there is nothing to steal from it - chances are nobody will break into it.

As for 5-series, it doesn't seem to be a very hot car to be stolen so I wouldn't worry about it although this might be country-dependent. When I owned an Integra - I was very much afraid it will get stolen as these graced the most-stolen lists for many years now. I know several people who had theirs taken. I was lucky enough - it never got stolen. On the other hand I had 2 MX-5 convertibles - never had issues even with top down because I followed the rule from first paragraph.

I spent a few years installing alarms in cars, the #1 rule is: If a thief wants it, the thief will get it. I'll share a story to demonstrate this point.

I had a Toyota 4 Runner come in as an insurance job with a stereo theft attempt. The aftermarket radio had been damaged beyond repair in the theft attempt, but the thief didn't get his target. We raplaced the radio and damaged dash pieces and called it good.

A week later the 4 Runner was back, this time with MUCH greater damage to the dash. But the radio was still there, but damaged. We raplaced the damaged radio and dash parts and moved on.

A week later it was back. This time the radio was gone, along with the entire center portion of the dash. In fact, the whole dash was FUBAR. The seats had oil stains and the car smelled like gas. It turns out the thief got tired of being defeated by the 8mm bolts holding the radio in and took a chain saw to the dash to get the radio out. He got the radio, and we got several thousand dollars in insurance dollars to repair the damage. The point being, if a thief wants it, a thief WILL get it.

There Is nothing you can do about door dings except park like a reasonable human. If a thief REALLY wants the whole car they'll just bring a flatbed truck, and no one thinks twice about a car with an alarm sounding off of its on a flatbed. The ONLY way to get your car back from this is GPS tracking with a backup battery.

Other than that, the normal precautions apply, keep valuables out of sight, don't let suction cup marks stay on your windshield and park in
populated areas so it is harder for a thief to get in without being noticed.