Do You Ever Get Over Having A Truck Stolen ?

[68 Ford Stepside]

My wife's truck was stolen three years ago. We've never gotten over it. Everywhere we go,local & out of state we hope to see it somewhere. I keep the title handy so I'll have the vin in case we ever see it. When it was stolen we had a kind of sick feeling in our stomach & that feeling still lingers around every time we talk about it.

I remember, vividly, the night it was stolen. The slimebags loaded my sons Yamaha 1000 into the back of the truck & stole both of them around 4am. I've wished a thousand times I had installed a gps unit on it.

[BobbyFord]

That sucks. Rat bastages stole my dad's 1967 Fastback S-code Mustang, got it back stripped about a year later. It's re-assembled, sitting in my garage now. Folks that steal other people's property should have their knuckles ball-peened on an anvil everyday until they pass.

[72bumbee]

That is a violation of the worse kind.
Hope you get your property back in the same condition it was lost.
And yes, make sure the ball-peen hammer is at the ready...

[Cipher43]

That really sucks. I doubt you will ever be able to get over it even if you get it back some day. Really what it does is makes you think everyone is eyeing your ride to steal it and that paranoia sucks. I've never had a car stolen but I have had stuff stolen out of mine so I make sure things are locked up and out of site all the time ... And I live in a small town where most don't lock anything.

[Ranchero50]

One of the guys where I work had his stolen truck show up one day with a new hire a couple years later. He said he walked past it and did a double take along with the other guys who remembered the truck. Everything was the same except the VIN tag on the dash.

So there is hope...

[fastEdsel]

No! F10YCD69304 1968 F100 Ranger. 360, three speed, dark blue.

[Mancar1]

Ya my late father and I had a Honda outboard stolen off the boat in the side yard. 10 years or so back and I would still like to find out who the heck stole it. Not that I would seek revenge. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[sargentrs]

I took a week's vacation from work, in 2006, and crawled under the hood of my bump. Tore it down to the block and put a timing set, water pump, seals, head gaskets, oil pan gasket, valve cover gasket, intake gasket, rebuilt the carb and gave it a full tune up. Man, she was running better than she ever had. Took it for a test drive to Wally World about 20 mins away and was so happy about the way she ran. Pulled into the parking lot at 5:30 pm and went inside. At 5:45, he backed her out and drove off in her. Filed a police report, checked the video cameras and all we saw was the left tail light in the video and him from the waist down as he rounded the back of the truck. Saw the video of my truck backing up and driving off but couldn't see nothing of him but the back of his head. 14 months later I got a call from the chief of police of that city telling me they'd found my truck. I asked "Who is this? Is this some kind of a joke? It ain't funny!" He confirmed he was the C.O.P and that my truck was in a wrecking yard about an hour and a half away. The guy had stolen my truck and headed north to Tennessee. He got pulled over for a traffic violation about an hour and a half later. They ran his license and found out he had an out of state warrant in North Dakota, arrested him and hauled my truck away. When they ran my plates, the cop who took my report hadn't even made it back to the office to put it in the system so the plates came up clean. 14 months later, somebody came into the salvage yard and wanted to buy the 9" rear end out of my truck. The yard figured they better run the plates once more before parting her out and she came up stolen. They called the cops who then called me. I went up there with my jump box and a gallon of gas and she fired right up and I drove her home. Didn't even have to air up the tires. I've had her ever since and there's no way I'm parting with her now. Hope you have the same luck!

[68 Ford Stepside]

The old flareside isn't much, but it will have GPS on her by Christmas. I guarantee it.

[crazyhorse]

Hope you find your truck.

Keep in mind when looking for it , it may not look like it did when you had it.

[1971fordcustom]

If Im not in my town! What I do is take the coil wire off! OR pop off the Bat Cable sence the Bat is under the floor! If they want it they gonna have to push it!

[ultraranger]

If Im not in my town! What I do is take the coil wire off! OR pop off the Bat Cable since the Bat is under the floor! If they want it they gonna have to push it!

My '89 5.0L Mustang GT was stolen off the parking lot of Doctors Hospital in Little Rock, Arkansas in December, 1997. Haven't seen it since.

Popping a coil wire off may not be enough to stop a slick thief. All he would have to do is pull one of the spark plug wires off and swap it into the missing coil wire's place. It would run good enough on 7 cylinders to make the vehicle disappear. ...he probably wouldn't have an extra distributor rotor with him though.

[XABN82]

My first new truck was a 1985 Chevy SWB Silverado, I know it was a Chevy but I was 20 years old and didn't know better. The truck had 900 miles on it when it was stolen at the local mall. The police did find it in Alabama about 4 months later but the insurance company had settle with me and I had a new on. The thieves changed everything to make it look like a GMC. Made me sick.

[69timemachine]

All you can do is wire up a kill switch or master power switch that's accessible from inside the cab so as not to attract attention when you're getting out. Or even a fuel valve under the seat to make it stall after a little bit of running. I have some traps hidden on my bump, so hopefully even a fairly smart thief would never find the things I have done; at least not without some diagnostic tools and about 20 minutes to troubleshoot the engine's vitals. Hopefully it would be enough should the time ever come.

This one friend of mine had his Honda Rancher stolen off of his front porch and recovered about a year later. He also had his sweet '86 GMC stolen from the local library while he was inside working on a research paper back when we were in high school. It was recovered months later, totally stripped. Then his wife had her Dodge Quad Cab stolen from his grandmother's yard where he was trying to sell it. It was also recovered, pretty much stripped as well. Let's hope no one here has the same kind of luck as my buddy does!

[carbine2]

Some of us never do get over these things. My '72 crew cab was stolen 10 years ago and I still look for it. I have the title handy just in case. Rumor had it someone swapped vin #s and is still driving it. I've searched every driveway in Myrtle creek Oregon where it was spotted last but it is likely gone.