Woke up this morning about to head to the dealership and noticed white dusts that formed some kind of hand print on my passenger side dash, later found out that 6 dollars worth of change, an ipod nano and a pair of Ray Ban Sunglasses (that I just bought last Wed, wore 4 times) were stolen / missing... at least there weren't any signs of forced entry / damage to the car...


Should I still park it in the same spot? Everyone suspects me of not locking the door but I'm 100% positive that I triple check every time I leave my car, not willing to leave until I hear 3 beeps from the car lock.

P.S this was in an apartment style underground garage..

 

Well the TL auto locks anyway, well I know mine does, so I doubt that you left it unlocked. I see your from UCLA, maybe one of your roomates took your keys and stole the items?

 

Eoanou, do you have an after market alarm security system?

 

Nope, stock alarm has an autolock feature.

 

yeah, my car also have stock alarm and it does have an automatic lock...
if there is no sign of forced entry some might have the key...



____________________
Got the best acura accessories!

 

i think it's auto relock.. Using your driver 1/driver 2 settings you can change the time in which the car will re lock itself AFTER being unlocked and no doors have been opened

ie..

Door unlocked via key fob
Start auto relock timer
Door opened, cancel auto relock

the car will not just lock itself out of nowhere.. there needs to be an unlock function sent to the system at which point it will begin to count to the 30 / 60 / 90 second timer you set in the driver settings. If a door is opened this timer is shut off and the vehicle will not re-arm itself.

Sorry to hear about the loss.. sucks! =/ Was your nano hidden or just sitting out in the open? I have OCD so I know my car is always locked =p

 

Did you put your keyfob somewhere that it might have been accidentely pushed, like your pocket?

 

What year did the auto-lock feature come into play? I have a 99 and I was just curious.

 

Maybe someone have a scanner to scan the code of the stock alarm.

 

nooo the autolock works if u dont open the door for a few secs after u press the unlock button....but the alarm had to have been armed first. other than that u have to press the lock button for the doors to lock

 

it works as Timmahh described.
you can adjust it in keyless Memory Settings.
if you if you want to lock your car with the FOB,
you don't have to hit the lock button.
you can just hit the unlock botton & walk away because of the auto lock feature.


luckily, my car never got robbed as far as i know, of course.
but a month into owning my 06 I found a rattle in the door
when i took the door apart i found a wall scraper.
someone tried to slim jim the door lock but dropped the scraper into my door.
I've heard too many stories of people being burlarized
so I don't leave doors, windows, or even the sunroof open.

i hide anyting visible if i leave my car in a trouble area for a while.
i even remove my cell phone charger just to make sure they
don't get any ideas of what i may have stashed in my center console or cup holder.

there's too many crazy kids & crackheads out there
and this car is attractive.
and you can't forget there's so many identity theives.
they will go through all your papers, take your change,
sunglasses,...etc
within 15 seconds

 

and hit the lock button twice to get the confirmation beep.
just to make sure all the doors & the trunk are completely closed.

 

i dont know how accurate this information may be, but i once read somewhere in a thread, that on the 04+ models of the TL, there is a window roll down feature which u can enable from your remote by holding down the unlock button for more then 2 seconds (allows all the windows to open including the sunroof), also if you put the key in the drivers side door and turn it left and right and hold for 2 seconds, it will also open/close all the windows. now the scary part is you dont need the factory key to do this, any key/pick as long is it will turn the lock spindle will open the windows, therefore allowing someone to reach in and take anything in sight, and then if there nice enough, they will even close the windows for you =)..can anyone confirm this?

 

hey man I'm sorry for your loss...

but why leave an IPOD NANO and sunglasses in your car that are that valuable? (I can MAYBE understand the sunglasses) but the IPOD nano? Really bro, you live in LA, you should know better...you're just asking for folks to come in and break into it. Not giving you sh*t here, but why even leave anything enticing? Now that they know, you may be a target again as people don't learn from mistakes and will forget (as they are in that mindframe) and will leave stuff in the car at a later point in time for theft again.

good luck tho...sorry man I know it sucks

 

The windows and sunroof will roll down if you press and hold "unlock" on the the FOB twice. The same happens with two turns and hold in the 'unlock' direction using the key hole in the driver door, and the opposite for turning to the left (turn, turn and hold = window/sunroof roll/close)

To my knowledge you cannot just stick anything in there to make the windows go down; since you have to make a full turn twice you would need the correct key to do it; a blank key or something would not work. That's not to say it cannot be done - obviously if they can pick the lock they can roll the windows down, but if they can pick the lock there's no point in rolling the windows down.

 

Actually you can... (Trust me I know, that's why I go for the shaved look these days, by not having an exposed key-lock).

You can simply stick in a screwdriver, and break the lock with a pair of plyers. Not only will the alarm dis-arm, but your windows will roll down too. That's why I HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATE that Acura does not allow you to disable disarming the alarm with the key, like other manufacturers.

I've also seen people just pop the lock, to get at the exposed wires in the lock cylinder, which can be used to roll the windows down as well.

I for one, will NEVER use this feature, so I just disabled the key tumbler all-together.

 

So you're gonna take every single item of value of out your car before you go inside? This doesn't make sense.

 

This doesn't make sense to me either. Why wouldn't you just hit the lock button in the first place?? You're still hitting the same amount of buttons; an astounding 1.

 

well yes and no. Like I mentioned, sunglasses no, but electronics? You should never leave electronics in your car...especially if you live in high crime areas...LA, NY etc.

if you do, you will learn the hard way. And they're are valueables...don't you ever hear "don't leave your valuables in your car?!"

so, actually, YES, you SHOULD take ALL of your valuables OUT of your car.

 

Maybe I didn't word my response in a manner that is easily understood. My point is, the only CLEAN way to do it is to use the key; jamming something in there, pulling the lock out, etc, will leave a pretty obvious sign of the entry point. My response was to the person that said you can stick anything in there and roll the windows down.


Covering the door lock hole or disabling this and that will just cause them to break your window.

 

the point is it doesn't matter.
are you a bit slow??
of course i hit the lock button because it makes more sense
but with the auto lock feature, hitting unlock achieves the same result if you dont open the doors!!!!!!!!!!
I can't belive i had to explain that
go outside & try it before asking!!
i never said " i hit the unlock button instead"

plus after changing from the regular 06 key to the one peice swithblade,
i'm holding the FOB upside down half the time.

 

I'm not slow and you didn't have to explain that. If you hit the unlock and walk away, the car doesn't lock right away and has to wait for the autolock feature to activate. Someone could be hiding in the parking garage or lot and open the door before it gets a chance to autolock.

I would rather hit lock to know for sure it was locked (and even pull on the handle sometimes even thought I know I just locked it and see the red light blinking) than leave it unlocked and wait for the car to lock itself.

My point was that if you are taking the time to hit the unlock button on the remote so it will autolock itself, why not just hit the lock button yourself??

 

okay, ksuc
someone lurking in the shadows.
now you are pulling excuses from your ass
since we get each other's point,
you can keep digging or just drop it.
i don't want to battle on the net.

 

like i said,
the confirmation beep helps.
just to make sure the doors & trunk are completely shut.
i must hear that beep before walking away

 

I think you're "a bit slow" if you unlock your car as you walk away.





But, say one of the doors was not completely closed all the way and you used your method. It would not autolock b/c it thinks one of the doors is open. If you lock it as you walk away, the doors will still be locked even though not closed all the way.

I pulled that one out of your ass

 

Back on topic....

I LOVE to hear that beep knowing that it worked and all the doors are locked.

 

Well everything was hidden (out of plain sight), it was in an underground locked apartment garage and I just got this car (2 weeks ago) so I never leave the car without hearing 2-3 confirmed lock beeps. I'm just afraid of someone that knows how to get into Acura's being around in the area again...


funny thing with the ipod is I never have it in the car (trying to use my XM, don't have aux input for it) but I placed it in the car THAT DAY thinking I'll stop by the apple store to pick up teh cables, who would've known that it'd be stolen the same night I forgot it...

 

interesting note I guess: The sunglasses was in the driver side pocket thing (where you can pop out) and right next to it was the sunglasses case with everything inside, only the glasses were taken. From the looks of it, someone got into the PASSENGER side (right hand print on the dash) and leaned over to pull at the cover to pull out the glasses. my ipod / change was in the center console, closed so it wouldn't look like anything was there.


I'm really hoping that somehow this was due to my mistake of not locking the doors (even though I'm sure I did) otherwise there's some guy out in the area with easy access into Tl's...

 

There are a lot of things that could have happened

- Maybe you hit lock instead of unlock
- Maybe the last time you unlocked the car you accidently rolled one of the windows down enough that someone could get into it
- Maybe you never actually hit the lock button
- Maybe you hit the lock button but a door was open enough that it would not arm the car


I just make sure I hear the beep and see the lights flash; whoever did it is an asshole and hopefully it was just because the car was not locked or secured like you thought (I'd rather blame myself for not locking a door than assuming someone out there has a way to access my car whenever they feel like it without setting an alarm off).

 

yeah well said. Well I'm getting over my losses and about to stop 2nd guessing myself. I'll take it as though I didn't lock my car and that shit happens...

better than my friend's M3 who got keyed all around for NO REASON and he had to front 5 grand to repaint the entire car

 

First, don't leave anything valuable inside the car, either hide it in the trunk or take it with you. Second, try locking the car with your key instead of the keyfob. Someone may be stealing your keyfob signal to gain access to your car.

 

that sucks...sorry to hear of the theft.

regarding keyfob signal theft, that is highly unlikely. the signal is encrypted (old encryption, but still something) and simply intercepting the signal isn't enough to gain entry. getting the cypher to the encryption and then creating a "master" keyfob is beyond your average car thief.

there was a good article about how the keyfob encryption was recently cracked (by legit security pros), but it takes access to a keyfob for an hour or two to get enough random encryptions to work on the decryption process...and then a day or two to run the brute force attack.

.02

 

It probably worked out in your favor. I'd rather have somebody open the door and take my stuff rather than breaking the window and taking stuff .

 

Hit the lock feature on the key fob twice once you hear the beep walk around your car tapping where the weather strip is above the windows... checking the trunk to make sure it is closed and checking each door to make sure it is locked... afterall if one of your windows are rolled down you can activate the "alarm" system...

 

ok ok everyone I think at this point Gan knows how to lock his car... his shits gone he was just venting..... Im sure everyone here leaves something or everything in the car they dont want to forget or leave somewhere... I know I do. You feel better/safer when its in or on your property and have nothing to worry bout....at this point because of this unfortunate occurance Id say...get a self setting alarm so when u close the door it locks it for u when the car is off after a couple of mins if the button isnt pressed... or you can triple check urself and make sure the alarm is set.... just in case the alarm wasnt set in the beginning.... I dont know I wasnt there. Ive forgotten my alarm off a lot of times and in the back of my head Im like "i know i set it I heard the beep"buuuutttt i never did.

 

I work the night shift, and honestly I park my car and walk to the job away from the range of the key fob, sometimes I second guess myself and walk back to activate it...

 

ur not the only one bro.... now i go back even if it is locked to begin with and double check.

 

Can't remember if anyone in this thread said it, but there is both an audible and visual confirmation when you arm it. Parking and brake lights flash when the alarm is activated and the aforementioned beep as well. That is enough whether you are looking or listening. But if you do that after walking away too far, you might not hear it, as it is not particularly loud. So yeah, activate it "as" you start to walk away, not once you have.

As far as Gan is concerned, I think that maybe you accidently hit the button in your pocket or something. As far as the theory with the code snatchers - if they go to that length - take whatever they can find, they earned it. (j/k of course). But I am not going to sit around thinking of the limitless devices at the bad guys disposal...

So, preventative measures? I don't leave anything of value that can't be easily replaced and I keep up my insurance payments!

This is not a perfect world...

 

if u want to go to a greater length like i did, to protect your car and everything in it..buy an aftermarket alarm, and instead of that cheesy little siren that comes with the alarm kits, install -152db locomotive horns in place of the factory horns..i lived in NY all my life and where i live is 1 of the highest car theif areas (5 min in either direction is far rockaway projects, and east new york). if they see it and like it they will take it or if they cant get it (of course jealiousy) they will vandalize it. if they even tried to or attempted getting near it and those horns go off..its like a grenande going off next to you, you will def go deaf for a good 5-10 min lol

 

yeah, but doesn't the key fob have to be around for the car itself to auto lock? it won't auto lock on its own if you walk away...