So I’m casually browsing the book of faces while consuming my low-carb dinner when I notice an intriguing post in the Lexus GX Overland section (yes, there is such thing). Someone posted five security camera pictures of someone stealing a bolt off a roof rack off his friend’s Toyota FJ Cruiser. That is weird but the weirder thing is that the person who did it drove up in a lifted FJ Cruiser, one with a snorkel, off-road bumpers, and over-sized tires. Clearly a so-called enthusiast and definitely a member of some FJ Cruiser online forum. And he got caught.
But here is where it gets weirder. I was mounting my Yakima HighRoad bike rack onto my factory 4Runner (similar to FJ Cruiser) cross-bars recently. I noticed at the time that one side of the front cross-bar was missing one of the two bolts that secures the bar to its bracket. How weird, I thought, making no real issue of it. But because I mount my cargo box to these very same cross-bars about four times per year, I would have noticed that before. I remember even checking them for tightness once. But now I wonder if I was… [mystery music]… a victim of the Roof Rack Bolt Bandit!??!?! [Ta da dooommm].
From my googling it seems that these bolts cannot be bought without buying the whole damn cross-bar kit. Perhaps that’s why he was stealing them. What the hell do I do now? These bolts must have other uses in the vehicle, somewhere…
http://hooniverse.info/2018/08/09/review-yakima-highroad-upright-roof-bike-rack/
Hooniverse Asks: What was the weirdest thing stolen off your car?
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31 responses to “Hooniverse Asks: What was the weirdest thing stolen off your car?”
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Call me lucky, but I’ve only had 1 thing ever stolen – some SOB stole my Ram!
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2e/Dodge_Ram_pickup_hood_ornament_sop.jpg/616px-Dodge_Ram_pickup_hood_ornament_sop.jpg
Buddy lived in a ‘tougher’ part of Moorhead, MN during college years. I stopped, ran in quick to get him, wasn’t inside for more than a minute and boom – my poor ’83 W150 was defiled. About the only redeeming feature of that truck was gone.-
When that generation of truck was still in production, our neighborhood high schoolers went to a school whose biggest rival school had a ram mascot. It wasn’t unheard of for a half dozen of those to get stolen in a single night.
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I had the front emblem stolen off my 1977 Corvette years ago.
I suspect someone stole the vent visor off the Trailblazer one Halloween at the same time a turd was left on the windshield. (That made me want to wait in the bushes with a T-Shirt cannon loaded with dirty diapers.)
I knew a guy in the 1990s that had a Cavalier, I believe,that had a low front spoiler. When his spoiler got cracked or bad curb rash, he would go around and find a good one on a car in a parking lot and swap them at night.
I suspect someone stole gas out of my old K-10 truck when I had it. The truck was originally a diesel, but had a gas 350 by the time I got it. All the badges and fuel cap said diesel. There was only gas in the tank. I really hope they were trying to steal diesel.
I will confess in my younger days to amassing a few cigarette lighters and sound system demo tapes from the big auto show. -
Maybe Yakima is being a PITA about something unnecessarily, or they lost the specs from whoever they offshore the actual production from, but I’d bet you could find some specialty fastener supplier that could duplicate it.
I’ve had a couple of fairly low-buck aftermarket stereo head units stolen, but that’s hardly surprising or novel. Given the ubiquity of such thefts, I can’t imagine the thieves getting much of value in return for the JVC unit that Circuit City had as an open box clearance special when I bought it five years prior. I could see them going through the motions almost out of a sense of obligation.
The asshole that re-broke in to my truck only to find that I didn’t replace the one he stole last time can go eat the broken glass he left on my floorboard though. F that guy, I hope he enjoyed my Robert Earl Keen CD.-
Had someone break into my K-5 Blazer during college. They busted open the nice little wooden toolbox that I had made to go over the fender well. Went in my tool bag and stole the $5 AutoZone socket set. Left about $50 worth of Craftsman and Snap On wrenches and ratchets. Left my big 6 D cell mag light and left me a radar detector they stole from someone else.
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Can’t have too many 10mm’s, I guess.
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West Textures?
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Walking Distance
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My stolen bolt was an OEM bolt off an OEM cross-bar.
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Ah. Misunderstood. Replace Yakima with Toyota. Though that seems pretty poor from an OEM.
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“only available as a complete assembly”… typical manufacturer.
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If they lost the specs I imagine they could say something on the forum… or hell, knock on the guys door and talk about borrowing it to get a copy
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Maybe they are taking customer service tips from the airlines?
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I lost a new Canondale mtb off my Yak rack once, cut through the lock. Was only gone about five minutes. The wierdest one was the plastic plug over the hole in the bumper of my pickup to mount a tow ball. After that I stuck a 1-7/8″ ball in there and leave a 2″ ball in the receiver.
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Steering column.
I was moving from a not-so-good area, and was pretty much living at my new place full time, but I had a couple of pickups that I had left in the driveway at the old place. An S10 and an F150. My first inkling that something was amiss was when I received a notification in the mail (at my new place) that a warrant had been issued for my arrest (!) for having non-functional vehicles on my property. They were functional when I left them there, but the aluminum wheels of my S10 had been stolen, as had been the “roll bar” from its bed. The radiators of both trucks had been stolen. The F150 had a window broken out, and lo and behold, the steering column was missing. The radiators, no doubt, went to the scrapper, as was likely the fate of the aluminum wheels. There is not enough scrap value in a steering column to justify the effort of removal, so I reckon someone needed an F150 steering column.-
For those without scruples, the world is their pick-a-part.
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Caught On Tape! We had to rewind the security cameras at my workplace until we found footage of a mentally unbalanced man wandering around the motorcycle parking, yelling at the seagulls on the roof, throwing garbage at the walls, and ultimately taking umbrage at the way the rear of my TW200 was looking at him. After seizing the turn signals in both hands and ripping them off the bike, he exited stage right.
I can’t think of anything that’s been stolen off any of my dozen or so shitboxes over the past 30 years. But then, I never really looked at the exteriors that much. -
Taillight lenses, available for less than $30 each at the auto parts store, or about $20 ebay for new aftermarket. The truck was parked in my driveway, and the theft happened while I was asleep.
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If I ever need a bike rack it will not be Yakima , what a load of crap.
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This is an OEM cross bar. The Yakima was just an attachment. The Yakima part is fine.
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One of the crossbars from our family minivan was stolen in a fairly crowded parking lot during my kid’s swim meet. The second one was partially unbolted, suggesting they were in the process of taking it too, but were perhaps spotted and bailed. Unfortunately replacements only come in pairs, but at least I have a spare now.
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I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before, but as I learned when doing auto show prep, apparently guys who own V6 Challengers want the oil cap from an SRT-8 just because it’s different (the whole Mobil 1 recommended bit), so those had to get swapped for the plain units or they’d disappear.
Only thing I recall losing off any of my cars was a Save The Manuals magnet, twice. Once might have been a mistake (probably lost to the carwash), but it the first was definitely stolen from the car in my college parking lot. -
I’m not sure I’ve ever owned a vehicle that anyone would have a desire to steal or rummage in. For the most part, I even forget to lock it.
Someone tried to steal my favourite bike once though, the last steel frame Bergamont Fluxus, but they didn’t get through the lock. So they kicked the front wheel to pieces and I had to walk the 5 km home from the train station.-
Had the front wheel stolen off my MTB when it was locked outside a police station.
I’ve had a couple of vehicles broken into, but there was never anything of value in those to steal so I just lost low-value stuff.
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A slide rule out of Bugeye Sprite, no door locks on that car so it’s open season. Bought my first calculator to replace it. The ashtray out of my TR4, didn’t have the top up. I walked all over campus looking for another TR4 figuring who else would take it.
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They were simply worried about your health, and wanted to make sure you wouldn’t smoke. 😉
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While I can’t really confirm it, I do believe that the headlight wipers were stolen off of my old Saab toward the end of it’s stay with me.
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Last January I had the license plates stolen off of my F250 while it was sitting in my driveway. Then a couple of months later I got a call one Sat night about 11 from a Police officer who pulled over a White Ford pickup wearing my plates. So apparently someone went shopping for something that wouldn’t raise suspicion if a cop ran his plates.
I also had the Canopy for my Ranger stolen years ago but at the time it was leaning up against the house as I had taken it off to get gravel and didn’t put it in the back yard or back on when done. -
Kinda common, the star was stolen off my parent’s Mercedes in the mid 80’s. Dealer replacement cost – $20. Really.
Someone stole the taillight out of the ’83 5000 I had in college. Popped the trunk, removed 4-5-6 nuts, and gone. Audis were super rare then so I kept an eye out.
Made the college crime log – Complainant reports taillight stolen from Audi in on-campus parking. -
The H on my ’84 Honda Civic went missing. I have a suspect. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0220164a935a6e6121b342e6df7a5f0015dcd3c69750df50b04d55db15ad7433.jpg
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My Car in High School an 88 Acura Integra was broken into a few times. someone had taken tin snips to my license plate to cut off the sticker (this is before they had the tag number in the label in my state). The Fog lights were stolen off of it, These were aftermarket units and my dad and I had cut out the lower grille so no one would steal it (which was common at the time and I didn’t work in a great area) Needless to say, it didn’t help. The last time I can remember for this car was it was parked at my dads house one night and someone broke into it by bending the door back, the worst part is… They stole nothing.
Years later I had the same vintage Audi 80 Quattro. It was parked in front of a friends house in the city and someone smashed my drivers window to get to the stock radio (that didn’t work) and stole a baseball hat that I had bought at a convenience store. They left the New Pioneer radio in the back passenger footwell. The worst part is, the window cost $450 to replace, and the only company that stocked the window for it at that time (mid 00’s) did such a bad job on it. They wouldn’t come out to my work to repair it, so I had to take off to go into their shop. After an hour or so wait, they tell me the car is done. They conveniently left the door open for me, Turns out they broke the latch and couldn’t get it shut. The cheap plastic connector they put in to hold the window failed within a few months, but by that time the rest of the car was pretty much junk.
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