Car stolen overnight.

Soldato
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Damn dude, that sucks. :( Hope you get everything sorted with minimal hassle!



When mine was stolen it was found a few days later on a side street about a mile away from my house. When I got it back, I noticed there was a new address in the sat nav. I gave it to the police and they said they were aware of it. A while later I saw in the news that there had been raids on several houses in that area, so hopefully at least a few people were nailed for something.
Possibly not the clevest thieves then:D.​
 
Soldato
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Someone stole my mates Focus and it ran out of petrol about 14 miles away, they got to a station and filled it, then got caught because obviously they couldn't fill it up with faces obscured. Might be different in these times now with covid :D
Sorry to hear OP, as someone whos been burgled (well parents house but i lived there at the time) i know how gutting this must be.
 
Soldato
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Someone stole my mates Focus and it ran out of petrol about 14 miles away, they got to a station and filled it, then got caught because obviously they couldn't fill it up with faces obscured. Might be different in these times now with covid :D
Sorry to hear OP, as someone whos been burgled (well parents house but i lived there at the time) i know how gutting this must be.

Similar thing happened to a guy at work. They ran out of petrol in a service station carpark. It sat there for days until someone reported it as abandonned.

When they recovered it they had stolen all the badges off it and left half eaten KFC on the back seats. It had fake plates on it too.
 
Soldato
OP
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26 Dec 2011
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City of London
Well the 'good' news is that the insurance assessor has offered me about £3000 less than I paid for the car in Feb 2019, the bad news is I won't be able to buy anything with the same spec as there is just nothing available like it. It looks to be a fairly accurate valuation, and I'm actually nicely surprised at the residuals on a G01 X3 looking at the BMW Approved Used site, but I'm not sure whether to get another because it won't be the same. I also need to wait for the insurer to call as I also had a couple of child seats in the car and a few other things I can hopefully claim for.

I've been given a Skoda Fabia now as a loan car (originally got a Renault Captur but it was manual and my partner can't drive a manual at the moment so Enterprise swapped it). The Fabia has been nice on the school run, especially for parking so maybe I'll look at something smaller like a Mini when I get paid out. I used to have an R56 Cooper S and really liked that.
 
Soldato
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It’s that or I never know where the keys are. I have a baseball bat within arms reach and the house cctv/alarm will wake me if them breaking in doesn’t. It depends how logical I’m thinking when I wake up I guess, I’m not the best at logical thought when I’m half asleep. The stairs should act as a good choke point. I don’t sleep much anymore anyway and every noise outside wakes me up in between.
Having a baseball bat is great till they take it off you and then use it to hit you with ;)
Also most these thieves are already armed
 
Soldato
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@Em3bbs did you have GAP insurance?
I did not unfortunately, but it wouldn't have made much of a difference in the end - really surprising how the X3 has kept it's value over two years compared to other BMWs I've owned.

The insurance assessor said he's had a huge amount of BMWs come through recently, and there is an interesting eBay seller who seems to have more X3 individual interiors on sale (and other parts) than the whole of the BMW Approved Used website has cars with them.
 
Associate
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Guess it would have made about £3k worth of difference if you had it covering the difference between original purchase price!
Might be able to talk the insurance up a bit though if you can't find any with exact spec to further reduce the difference!
 
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Good to hear the insurance company is moving. I keep my car keys in a faraday cage bag thing, but to be honest the greatest deterrent is that its a Skoda and the houses all round me have much nicer cars to steal!
 
Soldato
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really surprising how the X3 has kept it's value over two years compared to other BMWs I've owned
maybe, that's judicious purchase coincident with the new platform.

You hadn't recently put new tyres on ? not sure if payout would comprehend that.
 
Soldato
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8,833
Sorry to hear of your loss, that terrible news.

This sort of thing has been going on for so long now. I remember a colleague had his car nicked and the police told him 8 cars were taken that night all the same way. Broke into the house quiet as mice. Took the keys nothing else and drove off. That was 12 years ago. Keyless entry has made it even easier it seems. Police knew it was Eastern European gangs, fly in scout an area. Steal the cars and leave. Back again in a week or two to a different part of the country. A downside of free movement.
 
Soldato
OP
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maybe, that's judicious purchase coincident with the new platform.

You hadn't recently put new tyres on ? not sure if payout would comprehend that.
No, I only put about 4000 miles on it in 18 months (combination of a train commute then lockdown). Anyway it's not been recovered and they are paying out this week and basically it worked out I paid about 200 quid a month to own an X3 m40i which isn't that bad! Now to find something new, I'm probably going to go for something smaller this time, the X3 was good for the couple of holidays we do each year, but for the school run which is pretty much daily and in a small village with equally small parking spaces (to the extent that the car wouldn't fit in most) it wasn't very practical. No rush as we have another car anyway.
 
Soldato
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No tracker on it?
I noticed in the BMW app there's a locate my vehicle option. not used it yet.

I always fancied a car with Keyless entry and was a little sad my car didn't come with it but in hindsight i'm happy with it, the push button start is more than adequate.
 
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