while I was making a delivery today about an hour ago...I was driving in a huge parking lot to goto the New Atkins Kent Medical building on 1500 Mt. Pleaseant Valley Way in West Orange, I saw this White TL right in front of me facing me and I looked at the headlights b/c I noticed they were really black..I thought the guy painted the chrome part black to give it that look..but then as I got closer, I noticed he didn't have any headlights...and there was an older gentle sitting in his car reading the newspaper.

Then I parked my car and went and talked to him...he told me that it happened a few days ago in the parking lot of Houlahan's on Route 46. So guys if you are in the area please be extra careful with your TL...this is really a bad area to own a TL. The gentleman also told me that it will be 3 weeks to get the new headlights and it's his only car...I feel bad for the guy...not the best ownership experience....

 

I think someone should invent a device that utilizes HID's high voltage and charge that through the entire housing and somehow shocks the the theif. Either that, or the headlights' mounting method must be changed.

 

damn ....

Im going to tie my headlight to the body frame and maybe attached my 1farad cap to it ..... touch it and you f*cked ...

 

Now that gives new meaning to the "shock sensor" mod. lol

 

Tis problem is getting ridiculous in the NJ/NY area. I am paranoid every time I take my car anywhere. Something definitely needs to be done about this.

 

What car are these thieves gonna put our headlights on anyways? And how the HELL do they jack it from us without our alarm going off?

 

This is pretty much where the TL/CL headlights are going:

http://www.honda-acura.net/forums/sh...threadid=48901

There's a post near the end about some guy who sells the HID's out the TL cheap.

Don't know many TL/CL people willing to part with their headlights willingly (or cheap.)

Hopefully when HID's become more common in new cars, theft rates will go down...

 

My alarm is getting installed as we speak! I guess it will make me feel a lil bit safer now. Plus, the remote start will be awesome!

 

did u tell him to get the shock sensor though ?

 

Damn Joey, I go to the Houlihan's sometimes on Rt. 46.
That's it, I'm riding my bicycle from now on.

 

Make sure your bycycle doesn't have any acura 3.2tl label. otherwise those a$$ might mistake it a TL and rip off your bike ....

 

Myneighbor has a 2000 tl, his headlights were stolen right on our block. I have a 2002 dwp tl-p and his mom has a 2002 wdp type-s. anyway i dont want my lights jacked. we live in mt. vernon. there are other tl's on our block but his were the only lights to get taken. i felt bad for him and luckily he didnt have to pay cause i hear the headlights are real expensive on our cars...


unreal i hope none of us has to go through this horror...


-ggard-

 

Bigmonkey:
That's my idea too except to power my electronics setup I have 6 Farads...that'd make em think twice about it....

As for the routing the HID voltage through...that could be a problem two ways...first, you get shocked when you short out a circuit...aka you are the path of least resistance...and the problem there is that you have to calibrate the circuitry for the resistance so as not to blow it...and there are a TON of possible resistances. The other problem is that it's not voltage that does it to you, it's current. Hence a 3000V circuit at 1 microamp won't do jack to you, but 300V at 1 mA will kill you dead. That's why I capacitor can kill you ("good" ones can theoretically transfer all of their charge from one plate to another in under 1 ms with negligible resistance), and I mean kill you. The idea is like water...someone hitting you with a high pressure watergun won't do much, but if you get hit by a slow moving flood your whole house is gone.

Austin519

 

This headlight thing is really getting out of hand...we really really need to do something about this...I don't wanna be next and I hope none of you either...so we gotta come up with a solution for this.

Do anyone know if any other luxury cars are having problems with headlight theft like our? Lexus? BMW? Mercedes? Audi?

 

And someone had a REALLY good idea on another post about this...

Go to Home Depot...get some security bolts with really really weird screwheads, they won't be able to take them off unless they're carrying around some crazy toolbox, and they've probably just got a standard tool...

Austin519

 

That is a really good idea there.....

 

I agree...but not my idea...I will say though I have already done it...just bring your bolts into home depot and they have some of the same size...mine have a hex screwhead...sure makes ya feel safer...

Austin519

 

Time to go to Home Depot.
It's so sad that we bought our car to enjoy it but then end up worrying about our headlights being ripped-off.

 

Blackshadow:
Ah but I'm not the smartest guy in the world huh?

Austin519

 

Hey if someone does go to Home Depot to get the bolt replaced, please make a note of the length/thread pitch and post it here!

 

Just a suggestion if you are going to get different screws or what not. You might want to think about one-way screws. Either that or they make a torx screw with a little tit in the middle of it.

 

Isn't that the headlight housing is plastic??? If it is the screw doesn't do any good. They can just break the plastic that attached to the body. Im going to check the light tonight, if it is not plastic, im going for the new screws

 

The light housing is plastic. However, a while back the headlight theft thing was discussed and it was determined that the thieves are probably prying out the whole housing with a crowbar. Faster and guaranteed results. I just had my '02 headlight out last night and it's held in by 5 10mm bolts. Judging by where they are located, they will be no match for a well-placed crowbar. Putting in Torq screws or one-way screws isn't a bad idea except if they really are taking the time to take out the screws, by the time they get to the point where they can see the screw heads they've already caused a lot of damage (bumper cover is destroyed, hood is bent up). The fear expressed before is if they get to that part and get frustrated, what's to keep them from taking out their frustrations on the rest of the car? Plus a lot of damage is already done.

I'm not saying don't change the bolts, just it might cause more harm than good. Best solution so far is a good aftermarket alarm with shock sensor combined with judicious parking.