Aaaargh! Yet more damage!

[quk@isham-research.demon.co.uk (Phil Payne)]

In message <01bd0f7d$8f419350$8c111ba1@ktn.olsy.dk> thyrsted@olsy.dk (Kenn Thyrsted Nielsen) writes:

> What the F*** can you do when they've set their mind on YOUR Q ?

Those of us who've spent many happy hours trying to find the most elusive 
things that can cause an Audi I5 engine not to start know many, many simple 
ways of immobilising an engine that even a main dealer would take hours or 
perhaps days to find.

When I park the car somewhere 'iffy', I just lift the bonnet and pull off a few 
strategic connectors and hoses.

I have one friend who carries a 'gutted' fuel pump relay.  It looks perfectly 
normal, but has no insides.  Quick switch, and the average thief would be 
stumped.
 
But some of them are _very_ good.  We have lost several 20Vs and MBs to thieves 
in the UK over the last year in circumstances that lead us to believe the cars 
were targetted and the thieves might even have known what brand and model of 
immobiliser was fitted.  The key to this is killing the demand - most ur-
quattros stolen in the UK are believed to be broken for parts.  Care when 
buying second-hand parts (especially engines) will spoil this business.
 
Some UK second-hand parts dealers now find UK business so hard that they 
advertise primarily in overseas publications.

Most especially, I would urge anyone buying a second-hand engine in or from the 
UK to check that the number is intact, and then check that number with Roger 
Galvin. Yes, you can buy engines with their numbers ground off (two in the last 
year) for GBP500 against the honest market's price of GBP2000+, but it's at 
someone else's expense.  The engine number is checked during the MoT test, and 
if it's blank or defaced an honest garage _WILL_ inform the police, who have 
ways (which I won't discuss) of determining what the original number was.

More recently we have started a programme of marking the major subassemblies on 
our cars in a specific way.  

-- 
 Phil Payne
 Committee Member, UK Audi [ur-]quattro Owners Club