or better yet, easiest way to disable a car.

here is the situation

a friend of mine sold a car to his roomie but the title never changed hands b/c dude never paid the contract in full. Now the guy has jumped town w/ the car and pretty much took around 1200.00 from my friend.

my friend did a little investigating on the guy and found him living in apex and where he is working. We are planning a little stealth trip to retrieve the car tomorrow night when dude gets to work.

My question is this…my friend is sure ole boy is going to come and try to take the car back so we want to figure out the cheapest, easiest way to make sure the car cant be stolen so he can get it serviced and sell it

12/20/2005 9:26:15 PM

oh yeah, its a 93 nissan altima

12/20/2005 9:26:46 PM

pull the plug wires

12/20/2005 9:28:18 PM

the guy is pretty handy and might bring a battery
my friend also needs to get the car serviced and he is not going to be able to for a week or so
maybe something that can be removed and replaced
how about a fuse?

i told him to buy a club

12/20/2005 9:32:32 PM

a battery isnt going to help unless he happens to have spare plug wires

12/20/2005 9:33:14 PM

yeah, i know that
but i dont know if my friend will be able to put them back on if he takes them off

12/20/2005 9:40:18 PM

take out the ECU

12/20/2005 9:41:10 PM

just call a tow truck and have it towed to a location of your choosing - you have the title - it's your car.

[Edited on December 20, 2005 at 9:43 PM. Reason : asdf]

12/20/2005 9:43:31 PM

do you not realize that this is a legal matter and requires the assistance from the sherriff? dont be stupid and "re-steal" the car without the authorities help. go to the fellas work tomorrow night with a deputy and make sure he knows you are taking the car back. again, dont be stupid.

12/20/2005 9:43:44 PM

oh thats no fun
but you are right

12/20/2005 9:45:55 PM

pull the fuel filter off.

12/20/2005 9:59:34 PM

this is silly.

1. call cops, report stolen
2. go watch them come, vid to post here
3. ...
4. profit

12/20/2005 10:10:21 PM

12/20/2005 10:15:35 PM

Quote :

"1. call cops, report stolen 2. go watch them come, vid to post here 3. ... 4. profit "

12/20/2005 10:19:59 PM

I always yank the ecm fuse or a fuel pump relay.

12/20/2005 10:22:05 PM

Quote :

"do you not realize that this is a legal matter and requires the assistance from the sherriff? dont be stupid and "re-steal" the car without the authorities help. go to the fellas work tomorrow night with a deputy and make sure he knows you are taking the car back. again, dont be stupid. "

If he legally has the title to the car, it's in his right (and in some places his responsibility) to attempt to reasonable retrieve his property, if he can.

I've heard of people taking the distributor cap though as pranks on other people.

[Edited on December 20, 2005 at 10:26 PM. Reason : ]

12/20/2005 10:26:11 PM

^Huh? NO.

If the guy has "jumped town with the car" without fufilling the contract then he has in fact broken the law, and not only is it a bad idea for gunzz and co. to repo the car alone, it is a BAD IDEA. Listen, if the guy tries to come back and take the car from the rightful owner after it gets "repo'd" and cant get it to start then whats to stop him from smashing every window? Everyone here knows the right way to handle this.

12/20/2005 10:56:23 PM

Big Blue Ram although is a Dumbass is perhaps correct this time.

12/20/2005 11:05:18 PM

Optmus nailed it.

If you did "steal it back" I'd want to hide it rather than disable it. He'd probaby just fuck it up if he found it and then your friend would be shit out of luck. I'm sure your friend has an uncle or someone that would let him hide it out in his backyard until it got sold again.

[Edited on December 20, 2005 at 11:10 PM. Reason : .]

12/20/2005 11:09:26 PM

pull the ignition coils and fuses to the starter and fuel pump

12/20/2005 11:10:18 PM

^^ It would be better to get the po involved true... but I saw one of those court shows on TV once where the judge asked the person that if they had the keys, why they couldn't just go and get their car back, after someone had taken in similar to this case. Really, I don't know, but I trust what the TV judge says.

12/20/2005 11:11:40 PM

[Edited on December 20, 2005 at 11:14 PM. Reason : step 2: remove key from lock]

12/20/2005 11:13:51 PM

Why the hell don't you call the sheriff's dept and ASK?

12/20/2005 11:14:18 PM

Some people are skared of the po lease.

12/20/2005 11:19:12 PM

uhh don't park it at his house? hide it somewhere else perhaps? raleigh is big enough the fool can't cover the whole city in a night or 2

12/20/2005 11:47:07 PM

These exact thing happened to me two years ago. I found the car, drove it away and told the guy if he wanted to ever press the issue, he would get a felony (he was using an old ID of mine he found in the seat somewhere).

12/21/2005 7:42:13 AM

just pull the coil wire...

12/21/2005 7:55:42 AM

Call the cops. Explain the situation. Say the person jumped town without paying. You have the title, it's not been signed over.

You want to reclaim the car. You have his address and ASK THEM what you should do.

In addition you can file charges against this guy for theft.

But make sure you have records of all payments. It's HIS BURDEN to prove he paid you in full since the title wasn't transferred. BUT....

You need to be prepared to pay him back what he paid you minus use charges. I don't know what those are but typically it's 15%.

12/21/2005 9:04:49 AM

hahah, new twist to the story

my friend called me a few minutes ago to see if we were on for tonight and i asked him, "since you have the title, lets call the cops and let them know what we are going to do"

my bud says
"well, i dont really have the title...its in my name but i cant find it and its not in the folder for that car."

so im like wtf dude, and he says that he has contacted the bank or who ever and his new title is being sent to him but he wants to get the car b/4 the dude goes up to PA for the holidays

now im all like

12/21/2005 12:01:07 PM

Pull the efi fuse... easy, takes about a minute, and it can be a tee-total-mother-fucker to diagnose.

12/21/2005 12:13:06 PM

sorry, just saw where zxappeal already said it... and x2 on all the "involve the police and do it leagally" comments.

12/21/2005 12:16:20 PM

hows about you just park it somewhere that the guy isn't going to go?

12/21/2005 12:17:16 PM

it would suck big sweaty balls if he went home to PA for holidays and 1) wrecked the car 2) didnt bring it back 3) didnt come back

time is of the essence.

actually, call the cops anyway for assistance. title or not, it will still have his name when they run the registration...

[Edited on December 21, 2005 at 12:23 PM. Reason : cops.]

12/21/2005 12:22:23 PM

you dont have to have the physical title. The police can look it up easily.

12/21/2005 12:23:20 PM

Yeah, I know a guy who owns an auto repair shop in Cary who repo'd a car that he sold. He just went over one night and took it back on his tow truck. It's perfectly legal to go repo it yourself if the title is still under your name.

12/21/2005 12:36:06 PM

thanks for the input kids
i appreciate it

12/21/2005 1:16:06 PM

sugar in the gastank.

12/21/2005 1:34:21 PM

^did you even read the initial post... he wants to TEMPORARILY disable the car, without damage. sheesh.

12/21/2005 1:39:02 PM

slash all the tires with a switchblade.

12/21/2005 1:45:25 PM

^^ It wouldn't damage it anyway. Just an urban legend.

12/21/2005 1:46:35 PM

oh, so you saw that mythbusters episode too, huh? I knew what he was trying to get at though. (hence his next post). But good catch, none the less. Sugar in the OIL will do some significant damage though!

[Edited on December 21, 2005 at 1:53 PM. Reason : -]

12/21/2005 1:52:46 PM

not to change the subject

but sugar in the gas really dont work

i must have missed that episode

12/21/2005 2:17:05 PM

Yeah they found sugar in the gas did absolutely nothing, then they tried bleach in the gas, and maybe something else, i dont really remember. But if you put sugar not in the gas, but in the OIL, you could do some pretty significant damage.

If we're talking food items used to disable vehicles, my personal favorite has to be Beverly Hills Cop Axle Foley's bannanas in the tailpipe

12/21/2005 2:37:13 PM

put it in a garage????

hes going to slash the tires or some shit even if you disable it.

probably the simple thing to do to disable it would be to jack it up and take two of the tires off bring them inside and put some lug nuts that require a key on the car where the absent tires went. you would see him out there before he circumvented that. He cant drive it with two tires missing, and cant put a new tire on without the lug nut key.

While it is sitting there get your paper work straight so it can be reported stolen if he messes with it.

12/21/2005 2:53:58 PM

If you have to resort to this, then I still vote for the EFI/ECU/ECM fuse. The vehicle won't start or run and he'll just think it's broken down.

This whole situation just sounds like a mess!

[Edited on December 21, 2005 at 3:25 PM. Reason : -]

12/21/2005 3:25:37 PM

Quote :

"Yeah they found sugar in the gas did absolutely nothing, then they tried bleach in the gas, and maybe something else, i dont really remember. But if you put sugar not in the gas, but in the OIL, you could do some pretty significant damage."

the motor ran until they poured bleach in the oil

[Edited on December 21, 2005 at 3:47 PM. Reason : i dont remember sugar in the oil, tho]

12/21/2005 3:47:02 PM

interesting story.

Adam, I've got a warehouse parking lot where you can store the car for a while if you want. The dude would never find it. Let us know how it all plays out.

12/21/2005 4:00:09 PM

If you say the guy is handy a fuse might not cut it.

Pull the wire off the starter,
Cut power to the fuel pump or remove the wire,
take the wheels and leave the car on blocks,


Seriously though, why not just store it somewhere else where he won't find it? You could leave it in front of a grocery store for a week without anyone noticing it.

12/21/2005 10:10:20 PM

Quote :

"I always yank the ecm fuse or a fuel pump relay."

Ding ding ding. Takes 10 seconds.

12/21/2005 10:51:38 PM

we went to retrieve the car last night
my friend contacted the Apex police dept. to let them know that we were going to get the car incase it was reported stolen / they were cool about it all

and the dude caught a ride to work, we staked the place out and he never showed up / so i called his work to make sure he was there and he had came in on time and must have caught a ride from a friend...so no go on the car

12/22/2005 8:40:34 AM