How do thieves steal car parts?

sand_hun

How do thieves steal bumpers? Is there a device that enables them to do it or do they have to manually loosen bolts and prise it off?

My neighbour had her bumper stolen (Ford Fiesta) and asked me to check my CCTV. The footage is a bit blurry however from what I can tell, the following is what occurred.

A car pulled up in front of her car. It had headlights on, they slowly moved back and forth a few times staying within a range of 1 to 3 meteres. They switch their headlights off. At this point the bumper comes loose, despite the fact they can't be seen exiting their vehicle! Headlights go back on. They then reverse out of shot, presumably at this point they got out the car to retrieve the stolen bumper.

Any ideas?

EssexExile

Lots of them just clip off if you know where pull. I had an old Carlton many years ago when big plastic bumpers were the thing, it just pulled off.

DullGreyGuy

If its theft rather than vandalism then presumably they want to be able to either sell it or use it in which case it'll be removed in a very similar way to how a garage would remove it if you'd damaged it in a minor fender bender. 

Cars are made to be repairable and not with a 20 hour labour bill. I know with my fiesta it was just two bolts that held the bumper on, think modern ones have some clips too but they're replaceable and so they may not care too much if they damage them or not. 

sand_hun

Right, I see. So, how long do you think it would take someone to remove a bumper? Are we talking more like 20 seconds, or 20 minutes?

EssexExile

sand_hun said:

Right, I see. So, how long do you think it would take someone to remove a bumper? Are we talking more like 20 seconds, or 20 minutes?

Nearer 20 seconds than 20 minutes. There was a video on TV recently of people taking a bumper off, can't remember which car but it was all done within a minute.

DullGreyGuy

sand_hun said:

Right, I see. So, how long do you think it would take someone to remove a bumper? Are we talking more like 20 seconds, or 20 minutes?

It varies a lot by car and if they've done anything to it on a prior visit. 

Looking at a random video of someone taking off a Hyundai bumper carefully it tool them just over 3 minutes. 

vacheron

I once had a colleague who had the entire front of his Vauxhall Cavalier SRI stolen in our busy factory car park in broad daylight the 90s. Bumper headlights, grille and both front wings gone. Took them less than 15 minutes! 
 
There are problems at the moment with Porsche headlights being stolen because they cost thousands to replace.  
In these cases they just hack the car body apart with cutters causing thousands of pounds more damage!  

sand_hun

OK thanks folks. I am so confused about how they did it, especially as I can't seem them exiting their vehicle on my CCTV at the time of the theft. However it's dark and it's possible someone was crouching behind their own car to avoid being caught on my cameras. 

And those that suggest the thieves may have paid prior visits are likely onto something. Having looked at my CCTV from 2 days earlier there is a guy seen briefly crouching suspiciously by her car in the early hours of the morning.

baser999

There was a consumer programme on some while ago about cars being stripped down (in Birmingham or Manchester I believe) in car parks whilst people had gone into work. One woman had the bumper and wings removed, her car was taken away for repair and she later discovered that the replacement panels were those that had been nicked off her car 😄

DullGreyGuy

sand_hun said:

And those that suggest the thieves may have paid prior visits are likely onto something. Having looked at my CCTV from 2 days earlier there is a guy seen briefly crouching suspiciously by her car in the early hours of the morning.

Our video doorbell caught our neighbours car being stolen using a repeater. It similarly caught someone seemingly going door to door with some device a few nights before, with hindsight probably looking for keyless entry signals but clearly there was at least one more steps involved as they went straight to the car on the street and the neighbours door so knew which vehicle it was.