An article in the Boston Globe today mentions a lot of incidents of headlight theft; specifically the xenon lights. Apparently the theives can do a lot damage taking them out and cost the owners time and deductible $ to replace them... only to have them swiped again sometimes.

Has anyone come across this yet and can anything to be done to help prevent it? (outside of "don't park in a bad area").

 

wow, i have never heard of this.
i have heard of the airbags getting jacked, happened to a freind of mine.......but, never the headlights!

wtf is this world coming to?! shit man.

 

The primary problem with this was with the early years of the previous generation TL. Those lights were a perfect fit for the last gen Honda Accord so lots of people stole and sold them to people looking for an HID kit for their Accords. These are the incidents that I've heard the most about. Our TSX should not have that problem at the moment as our HID lights are not compatible with any other vehicle on the market yet.

 

The story is here: http://www.boston.com/news/local/mas...t_in_the_dark/


Nice to see/read you are OK!

 

who?

 

Hmm...intriguing. I think that as long as the problem remains only for Audi's and Nissan's, I'm okay with it.

 

This was my impression as well. I talked to a friend in service and he said it would not be a problem as the lights are not a direct fit into another vehicle, yet.

 

you know bulbs and ballasts are also useable, let alone the projector (if the headlight has one).

 

nothing like a motivated thief

 

How long will it be before someone comes up with "The Club" for headlights? I heard that airbags are also high on the list of stolen items. My friend's jetta was broken into a couple years ago and all they took was the leather seats. I don't know how they did it but they even managed to take the back seat. You'd figure that would have to be fairly difficult to pull off in someones driveway!

 

doesnt matter if it doesnt fit yet. You can always retrofit HIDS to fit in any housing

 

Luckily for us, most people are too lazy to actually do that. They would prefer to be able to just take the whole light unit and drop it into another car and have it work. Those who would actually take the time to do that would also be people willing to pay for real, legit HID systems.

 

wow, not good news. I hope that this doesnt becoame a problem with these cars. I know that it is a HUGE problem with nissans, I've seen plenty of maximas driving around with no headlights.
John

 

I heard about this a little while ago, and I do notice, every now and then, older Civics and Integra's with HID's (usually driven by young kids).

I can't help but think that these kids probably didn't spend $500+ to purchase and retrofit HID's for their cars. So, how did they get them?

 

i have seen some hid kits for as low as $200 here in phoenix, from a local shop.......but, most of these kids probaly stole them.......

insurace will cover your headlights, right? you will have to pay your decutible though, i would assume.

 

The headlight housing has absolutely nothing to do with the theft. The thieves are tearing apart the housings to get the D2S and D2R bulbs which retail for $190 each. They just steal the bulbs and then just turn around and sell them on the street or the smarter ones sell them over eBay.

This was exactly the same thing that was happening when airbags first hit the market 15 years ago - thieves tore apart dashboards or stole the whole car to resell the airbag packages which cost over $2000 each to replace.

I never park in a dark corner and I sure as hell never park on the street in New Jersey.

JCG

 

This really seems like a much greater problem on the east coast. I really haven't seen too many cars driving around without headlights here in Cali. Plus, there haven't been many reports of thefts of HIDs in my area and most reports I've read have been from the New England area. Maybe your thieves are more industrious than ours.

 

Most likely you'd have to go through your insurance. They just take a screwdriver, or some prying device and go to town on your headlight, messing up your hood, fender, and bumper in the process. I'd rather have them bash a window and pop the hood!

 

but, unfortanatly, crooks arnt that smart!