They found my car.........

[kestrel91316]

some of you might recall my ancient Honda got stolen a month ago. It just turned up near downtown LA and got impounded a couple of days ago.

In the meantime, I have been getting along ok with my feet, my excellent bike, and the bus because I live 2.5 miles from work, with all the retailers I shop at conveniently located on bus routes.

It would cost hundreds of dollars to bail my car out of the tow yard by the time I can get there, and its condition is unknown (other than the ominous oil leak and cooling problem that had cropped up recently). It almost certainly would need a $200+ tow to get it up here to my mechanic, plus the bail, plus god knows what damage they did driving it for a month the way it was, plus the ignition damage from stealing it. The car would have only been worth $500 on a good day, and that is IF I could convince some fool to buy it, given said oil leak and cooling issue. I think the assholes who took it probably burned up the engine, which is why it was abandoned by the side of the road.

So I made the decision to let the tow yard keep it and sell it for salvage. It's not worth the trouble, and in the past month I have "moved on". The money I DON'T spend on it will need to go toward a replacement.

I just had to get it off my chest, sigh. I feel a bit like I have abandoned an old dog. It was a great car for a long time.

ETA: The San Fernando Valley isn't known as the car theft capitol of CA for no reason......

[uppityperson]

1. have you insurance? If they would give you money, let them know, otherwise, nice to have an ending

even if it wasn't what you hoped for.

[kestrel91316]

6. I only had the mandatory liability insurance. Comp/collision (which

includes theft ins) is outrageously expensive in this area due to the high accident rate and high theft rate.

[TxRider]

11. I don't do collision but I do have theft

Speaking of which some kids or someone ransacked my 4runner in my driveway last night.

Guess I'll have to start locking it.

[csziggy]

21. Lock it and they will just break the windows n/t

[TxRider]

27. Probably dunno why though

It's a 13 year old 4runner, with stock cassette player in the dash.

Nothing worth taking.

The fools emptied my glove box and console and moved on I guess, nothing of any worth in either compartment. Just had to stuff the contents back inside.

[csziggy]

28. Yeah, sometimes all they want is any spare change they can find

Somebody broke the window in hubby's 1994 Explorer. All they got was the CD wallet. He had no change, nothing of value. The CD wallet was full of home made copies of CDs on the cheapest CDR blanks I could find. (All our original CDs are kept on the shelf - we play the copies and if they get scratched, we make new ones.) The CD wallet was a piece of crap I bought at Big Lots for fifty cents.

The damn window cost $200 to replace, not enough to bother filing with the insurance company. Cops thought it was a drunk that lived on the streets in that area. If he got short, he'd break into every car in the lot, and scrounge for change. He did the same - dumped everything out of the glove compartment and console.

The cops were surprised he took the CD wallet since he did not have any way to play the CDs. Maybe he hoped to sell them.

[Warpy]

12. Right, and the $500 deductible would have eaten up the worth of the vehicle

I guess you'll be looking for a new old car, then. The good news is that people were motivated by C4C to trade in older cars that didn't qualify, so there should be a decent selection on the lots.

[kestrel91316]

18. Craig's List is chock full of decent older cars. I need something to get me

through the recession, nothing fancy.

[hobbit709]

2. About 15 years ago a friend of mine had his Yugo stolen.

They bailed out after three blocks. He had his dirty laundry in the back and his socks really stunk.

[kestrel91316]

7. Yugos, didn't they turn out to be made from USED parts??

[hobbit709]

9. His actually was a good car

Until he killed it by driving it 80 miles with a bad water pump on a 90° day.

This guy had a tendency to not believe in preventive maintenance. He blew up at least five cars by never changing the oil.

[Horse with no Name]

29. Old joke...How do you double the value of a Yugo?

Fill it up with gas. buhdumpdump.

[YOY]

13. Who steals a Yugo?

I mean come on!

[Warpy]

14. I've never had a car stolen

because I've always had third world transportation, what is not so politely referred to in New England as a tuna wagon or a beater.

My first new vehicle was 3 years ago when I first inherited. It's a Kia and nobody seems to want to steal them.

It's stripped down, basic transportation that seems like sheer luxury to me after a Ford Ranger that was old enough to vote.

[kestrel91316]

17. My car WAS a beater, lol. 1988 Honda Accord with a dented fender,

ruined paint, and ripped up dashboard from a prior theft attempt in 1998.

Everyone who knew that car about falls over when I tell them it got stolen. The response is then always "WTF?? Who would steal THAT car???" followed by raucous laughter.

[rurallib]

3. Had mine stolen when I was a youngster of 19

Found it a week later parked in front of the police station with a week's worth of parking tickets on it. Literally the stall directly in front of the door.

Well you have some completion to your story.

[Tansy_Gold]

4. My sincere sympathies, kestrel

I do a lot of freelance work for insurance companies and I listen to a lot of interviews with people who have had their cars stolen. Most people don't understand what it's like.

For those who have insurance that replaces their car, all is well and good. But then there are those who still owe more on the vehicle than what the insurance company will settle for, so they're left without transportation, without a trade in, and with a debt still hanging over their heads.

And of course we never hear about those who didn't have any insurance at all. . . . .

:hug: to you and good luck




Tansy Gold, who has insurance but it doesn't cover the inexorable deterioration that sets in at 160,000+ miles. . . . .

[kestrel91316]

5. I hadn't bothered with comp and collision on it for some years,

because the premiums were so fricking high (given that this is the car theft capitol, lol) it made no financial sense. Until the economy tanked I actually had some money for replacing it, but that is all gone now, spent to keep the business going.

Sigh.

It needed to be retired. I think sometimes these things happen for a reason. Now I don't have to spend nights worrying about how many hundreds or thousands the NEXT major breakdown will cost me, lol.

[Cleita]

8. I didn't know you lost your car. I'm sorry. My husband got his stolen off the street

when we lived down south. It turned up in the impound as a shell completely stripped. The insurance actually paid for it to be completely rebuilt and he drove it another five years, gave it to his son-in-law, who drove it another ten years and then sold it to someone else. For all we know it's still running. Anyway, I digressed here a bit. I hope your insurance takes care of you like ours did for him.

[kestrel91316]

15. The car was 22 yrs old. I didn't carry anything other than liability on it.

Sigh. It was heading for needing a new engine anyway, that oil leak was ominous.

[katanalori]

10. Hi Kestrel -

I live VERY close to you! Last car I had stolen (here in "the Valley") was a 1986 Trans Am.
Current car - nobody wants to steal it. Not because it isn't a great/beautiful car - it is - but it is known for "high'maintenance" and the car theifs don't want any part of it. I had no idea that we were the car theft capitol of the Nation. No idea!

[kestrel91316]

16. And my '88 Accord was still one of the most commonly stolen vehicles.

It was practically inevitable, lol.

[Quantess]

19. Walking in LA? Now I have this song playing in my head:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7U2mvoh8j4M

[kestrel91316]

20. I walk a LOT these days. It helps that I am a 5 minute walk from a major

north-south bus line, and 15 minutes walk from TWO different major east-west lines. A Whole Paycheck is going in about 3/4 mile away, and there is also a Gelson's and Von's within reach, and a Trader Joe's a mile away. Not to mention a Walgreen's and a CVS. That's all within walking or really easy biking distance.

My office is a 40 minute walk. Several really good little restaurants between home and here. And yes, this is the San Fernando Valley a hellishly suburban section of Lost Angeles. Sometimes I close my eyes and pretend I'm in Paris. Well, maybe not.....but you get my drift.

[Quantess]

31. But now you don't have to go to the gym anymore (assuming maybe you did/do)

because you walk and carry groceries home, or pedal the bike. That's how I lived in SF, and I was proud of myself. I felt kind of superior to the creampuffs who insisted on sitting behind the wheel in traffic.

And, I hear that gas is still over $3 in LA. So now you can save some money while you get your exercise.

But, I am really sorry, though. This was not of your choosing, and I hope you can get another car, a better car, soon.

[ddeclue]

22. Sorry to hear that...

When I lived in Atlanta, some thieves stole my truck but it was such a POS that it stalled out on them about 200 yards down the street. HA HA... I found it abandoned with the door open and the battery stolen. They didn't even bother to steal the radio it was such a piece of garbage.

[depakid]

23. Had two vehicles stolen during my time in SoCal

The cost of impound and retrieval really did add insult to injury.

Better luck with the next one.

[Nikki Stone1]

26. When I was living around Los Feliz Bldv, I had a piece of crap car

The thieves didn't take the car it was so bad. But they did take the stereo.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

24. Just make sure you won't be liable for any of the impound fees if you do that.

I have heard of them going after people if at auction the money brought in didn't cover the fees. Sorry about the car I have been hit in a couple of them that were great cars you can get a little sentimental about them.

[Nikki Stone1]

25. Kestrel, I am so sorry.

It's hard to abandon a car. When mine was totaled in an accident I still felt badly about leaving it in the salvage yard.

[Canuckistanian]

30. They never found my Honda

A beautiful red 1990 Civic Si.

Stolen in 2000. The cops said if they didn't recover it within 48 hrs, it was on it's way out of the country.

[Maru Kitteh]

32. I'm really sorry you had to lose out on the count of someone else's assholeness

I had a little '79 Chevy Monza that I just loved. It wouldn't have been worth much at the time to anyone else, but I was a poor single mother. That car was utility, sufficiency, and freedom. That car was my friend.

My car got T-boned by some drunk wench when I stopped at a corner store to get some bread. Thank God neither myself or my baby were inside. There were no skid marks at all. The woman just drove straight into it. It took her a bit of effort to extricate her car from mine, as they were both fairly damaged and entwined.

The keystone cops that took my complaint didn't seem very interested in finding the woman who killed my car. There's only 36,000 people in my town. It's not like they had serial murders and organized crime to tend to.

You got screwed out of, at the very least, whatever you could have sold your car for.

I really understand how you feel.