There’s an old saying that in desperate times, people will do desperate things. If the power grid goes down or societal unrest gets out of hand due to economic or political reasons, this will definitely apply.
When society falls apart and looters and marauders have taken to the streets, there will be three primary targets that they will go after in their search for valuables:
- Stores and other business establishments
- Homes
- Cars
While many preppers are acutely aware of the importance of home defense and of fortifying their homes against looters, far fewer are aware of the importance of doing the same for their vehicles, let alone how to actually do it.
In this article, we’ll dive into some effective tips you can use to effectively looter proof your car.
Always Make Sure Your Car Is Locked
This may seem inherently obvious, but you might be surprised by how many people don’t actually lock their cars after stepping out of them.
It’s very important to do this when you consider that car thieves who attempt to break into cars will first try to gently and inconspicuously check the door handles.
Be Wise About Where You Park Your Vehicle
Easily the best strategy to looter proof your car is to ensure that it remains out of sight of looters in the first place. When disaster hits, you want to make sure you avoid parking your car in any busy streets or in dark public areas.
Related: How To Prepare Your Car For SHTF
The best measure is to keep your vehicle parked in your garage or in a shop or shed on your property. If possible, try to avoid leaving any vehicles parked in your front driveway or on the front sidewalk after the grid has gone down or civil unrest has occurred.
When looters and raiders come to your neighborhood, all vehicles parked on open driveways and on the side of the street will be very vulnerable. Not only will looters break into cars in an attempt to take valuables they see inside, they also may try to steal them outright.
Install a Locked Fuel Cap
Keep in mind that besides breaking into cars to steal them or take any valuables inside, siphoning fuel from existing vehicles will be another big reason why looters target vehicles in an SHTF scenario.
To this end, installing a fuel cap to your vehicle will help discourage any looters who could be looking to siphon off fuel from your vehicle.
Cover the Car
In addition to making an effort to hide your car during an SHTF situation, you can also make it more difficult to break into in the event that any looters find it.
Covering the vehicle completely with a heavy duty and tear-resistant material, such as polypropylene.
Related: Places To Avoid: Where Looters Will Strike First When SHTF
Yes, this can be broken through if looters make the effort, but the idea is that it will add one extra step and compel them to move onto the next vehicle they find that’s an easier target.
Never Show Your Valuables
This is something that you should be practicing in your daily life anyway. One of the worst decisions you can make is to leave your belongings showing in your car, whether it’s money, electronics, firearms, ammunition, important paperwork or documents, jewelry, nice clothes, or other valuables.
Ideally, you shouldn’t leave any valuable items in your car at all. In the event that you have to, make sure that they stay hidden and secured in a safe in your vehicle, and ideally one that is bolted or attached to the car in some way.
Employ a Steering Wheel Lock
In addition to making it a habit to lock your car each time you exit your vehicle, make it a habit to place on a steering wheel lock as well.
At the very least you should do this each time you exit your vehicle after the start of an SHTF situation.
A steering wheel lock will make any looter or criminal think twice before they think about breaking into your car and hot wiring it to drive away. Most likely, they’ll just move onto the next vehicle.
But even if a looter still thinks they can get rid of your steering wheel lock, you can install more locks to make their job even harder and more discouraging.
Install a Tracking Device
In the event that your vehicle is taken, it would be wise to know where it’s being taken, right?
This is why it would be smart to install a GPS magnetic tracking device on your vehicle. This is just as smart for everyday life as it would be for an SHTF scenario as well.
Use a Hand Brake Lock
Another measure you can take in this same regard is to install a handbrake lock to your vehicle as well, which will prevent anyone from operating the gear shift by locking it to the hand brake. While it may be inconvenient to repeatedly take this on and off in everyday life, it should be done when you are leaving your car for an extended period of time during an SHTF scenario.
Use a Wheel Clamp
Installing a wheel clamp on your vehicle’s tires is another wise move to make when your car is not in use.
If the steering wheel and hand brake locks were not discouraging enough for looters to try and take your car, a wheel clamp on top of the steering wheel and hand brake locks will be.
Keep Self-Defense Weapons on Hand
In the event that you are attacked while you are inside the car, it will be very advantageous to have self-defense weapons within easy reach of the driver’s seat.
A handgun or non-lethal defensive weapon such as pepper spray will be the best bets here.
Taking the above steps to make your car more defensible against looters is not something to take lightly.
Your vehicle(s) is/are not only very valuable possessions worth thousands of dollars, they are also very useful tools to ensure that your family can bug out of dodge quickly in a disaster if you have to.
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Good suggestions for living in the city. States need to relax regulations on the honest citizens to keep and bear arms at the ready in our personal vehicles. Those hijackers will blindside us in a New York Second from nowhere. We need the element of surprise on those criminals in today’s Bidenomics world.
Off topic:
River dams are being dismantled by environmental politics.
Did you know the Bidenomics administration is secretly in negotiations with national environmental groups, activist, organizations to remove dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers?
This will results in less to brownout electrical supply shortages which the EV crowd cannot charge their vehicles at any 24 hour period.
Those who throw out their gas stoves for electric stoves won’t have much power to cook their evening dinner, ha, ha!
EV vehicle technology, wind mills and solar panels are a green energy fraud done by China’s CCP. The more likely scenario will be GAS powered vehicles are here to stay. The HYBRID vehicles are the best of both world technologies. EV’s are a joke, cost too much, the battery replacements are non-existent in large quantities and a environmental health hazard.
China’s military build benefits from stupid Americans believing alternative green energy is the key to sustainability, wrong, wrong, wrong. It is all propaganda by the Washington DC Deep State. Carbon footprint credits are a fraud tax to sucker people into paying credits when in reality funds go to liberals to fund stupid useless programs. Part the carbon credits go to the Demoncratic party, just like the union dues have been for decades.
Wise up America!
Not only the fraud of the green energy China industry, those wind mills are disrupting FAA and military radars in those areas of these wind mill farms.
This can be an opportunity by China, Russia, NK, Iran to do dubious operations while our National Security radar systems have a blind spot.
Remember the Chinese weather balloons over our sensitive bases and Chinese American farmlands close to military bases, what can go wrong or right?
Steering wheel locks can be defeated, a wheel lock would be a better deterrent.
Most locks can be defeated. But the reality is that most criminals are lazy. They usually go for low-hanging fruit. Simple things like steering wheel locks make the target less attractive.
Ca. , Wa., Ore, New york all Democratic Hell States
Immigration Sanctuaries , Gun Control Village Idiots , morons with private security and plenty of protection with law enforcement
But NOT for you the public
they dont want you to have rights, guns, protection
The village Idiots in their life of luxury think you should just run away , leave what you have behind , let the criminal take your stuff for their next fix , or crime spree
that s the kind of leadership the democrats have in office
Taking advantage of the 10million uneducated college , not educated people to do thier bidding , Goal , Get rid of those with loyalty to a country and watering down with and by installing people who will be a Judas for what ever they can get
using the cause to further thier agenda
Follow the ukrane money laundering trails , find out all the politicians who got very rich off of the JUDAS who stole the presidency , the UN who controls the villiage idiots , and the Cfr who trains them in the evil colleges of propaganda , training , and indroctranation
Chris you are kind of right.
Pray for those citizens in those States especially Californication that harbors CA gov Newsom as Biden’s replacement in 2024!
Many low income and senior citizens in those States cannot afford to move out.
The major cities in California are indoctrinated liberal Demoncrats that out vote the conservatives in the rest of the towns and cities.
So yes California is a Sanctuary hell hole State.
Christopher you need to use English , comas spacing , makes you sound uneducated to your message to us unwashed pions. Your spelling sucks too.
Nuff said.
I don’t know either you or “Chris”, but it seems a case of the pot calling the kettle black, considering there are at least 2 misspellings and very questionable punctuation in your own comment. If you don’t know which words are misspelled, then maybe you are the one who needs to go back to school. Better solution: give others the benefit of the doubt, forgiveness of errors if they do exist, and focus more on the message and less on being the grammar Nazi. These are social comments, not PhD papers.
I agree. I go past his comments as they are so difficult to read and ‘understand’ with the horrible punctuation and spaces!
Sorry, but Clancy is right…the same with 6 inch run on paragraphs…just scroll down them.
Hi “spicelady,”
That is exactly what I portray in my example coma placement and “spellllings”, you accurately discuss.
According to you, we should look the other way of his crappy wording. No basic foundation of basic English.
Is that what you teach your own kids, if you have any, to not learn to be better at punctuation? Maybe you are a product of the crappy public education we have in America? Maybe you cannot tell the difference either in standard English.
People have gotten sloppy in their writing, texting and sloppy clothes. How many fat women wear spandex yoga pants in public?
Chris writes these opinion comments practically every post, he needs a brush up on his grade school basic English skills.
Clancy,
Again, this is a discussion, not an English class. I fully understood what Chris was saying. He is trying to contribute to this group discussion, whereas you are trying to portray yourself as the smartest person in the room. Try helping in this effort, instead of tearing others down.
One other option if your vehicle is going to be sitting for a while: remove the battery.
And yes, the two problems we have in this country are that we have forgotten God and have taken Him out of everything, and secondly, we have way too many people who cannot think for themselves, who believe everything the media tells them, and are clueless to the fact that no one in government cares about them or the country. Most Politicians only care about money and power..
Democrats are pure EVIL and sadly, most Republicans are not much better.
If you have the latest computer chip vehicle taking out the battery disrupts the electronics, computer, sensors that can end up a trip to the mechanic.
Also;
Amnesty baby, Amnesty is happening, President Reagan was given misinformation about signing a legal Amnesty action to give illegals legal status. Illegals vote Demoncrat because of the free stuff Biden gives out.
Other presidents have caved in to the illegal cottage industry we have today.
Biden is a globalist, believes what the EU European countries did in letting in potential Muslim terrorist into being a big mistake of heartache of constant violence. The world first, make America last and bankrupt, China wins!
Wake up you stupid Demoncrat rat fink voters to loosing your country.
America is following the same path by Biden and company, Alejandro Nicholas Mayorkas is an American lawyer and liberal politician who has been serving as the seventh United States Secretary of Homeland Security since February 2, 2021. And cackling hen border czar Harris. All Incompetent.
Biden opened the southern border of estimated 12 million potential terrorist
living on American taxpayer’s unwillingness to support them.
When do we start deportations?
I drive an old 2012 “Beater Van” Old Dodge Caravan for 10+yr now. I Don’t, never-have washed it. Looks old and neglected. Dinged up some. Not an “Inviting” target. But – Have I a motion-sensing Alarm camera on it at home. I am a weekly Competition Shooter, Multi-gun, so I often have guns in it. Also, FOP Stickers on all windows. “Leroy the thief” has to look past them to look in. Maybe make him a bit uneasy. If he does not get Dog-Bit by my 2 dogs. They sound the Alarm if a Flea lands in “Their” Yard. 🙂 I live in transition-zone fm City to County.
“religious experience” is one thing, guns and alcohol do not mix well, FOB.
Why not just window tint instead?
Some window tinting is not legal in all places. Friends of ours who were retired were planning on doing a lot of driving in the South and they got dark tint on their windows to combat the hot sun. The tint they got was not legal in their home state, so they had to remove it.
Window Tint – Yup – Considering it.
Wake up America, digital currency is the Mark of the Beast coming alive!
We still have time to repeal this nasty fiat money before it is too late.
See what other websites have explained what to do to stop CBDC ASAP!
The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help. President Reagan. We can not afford another 5 years of Bidenomics or CA gov Newsom, Michelle Obama to ruin our tipping point America. Don’t wait for the water to boil, Mr Frog & Mrs Frog become a Sheepdog, an Eagle, an Owl, a shark, a Grizzly bear, GOD is watching!
Their is a Demon in the Washington DC Deep State holding America as a hostage, GOD help us in 2024 presidential election.
Any time you get out of your car take the car keys with you
Nope. The unprepared and marauding hordes will go after:
1. Gun stores and other firearms businesses
2. Food and outdoor gear distributors
3. Ammunition plants and storage facilities
Those are the types of places that have what they immediately need to survive and have the true “valuables” that will be necessary in a SHTF world. They may have a security presence, but they will probably choose that kind of scenario over mom and pop holed up in their homes. I’d be more worried about what might get stolen out of my car (battery, fuel, other parts, etc.) than someone stealing the car altogether. Just my thoughts on the matter.
I agree, in general: stealing cars may be an issue for the first few weeks or months after a SHTF scenario, but eventually most of the available gas or other fuel will run out, and then most cars will be useless hunks of metal, except maybe to sleep in.
At some point people will start looking at horses, donkeys, etc. to pull their wagon loads; unfortunately most of them will likely have been shot for food by shortsighted marauders in the first few months after there is no more food in the supermarkets. Why hunt for hard-to-get deer, when domestic animals are just sitting there inside fences?
Our best hope is that most of the city folk and gang types will kill each other off, before they get as far as the rural areas where most of the farm animals live. But, don’t count on it: even if 99% of them do die of starvation or shooting one another, there are so many people living in cities (or large suburbs) that even 1% making it to, say, 100 miles outside their cities will be more than enough to wreck havoc on those of us with farms and homesteads. Second best hope will probably be to band together with one’s reasonably productive neighbors, try to mount some kind of defense against individuals or small groups of random intruders.
But that is mainly for a global SHTF scenario, where no one country has any particular advantage over another. If we are talking about a localized scenario, such as the CCP or Iran or who knows who manages to set off an EMP above the US eastern seaboard, then likely there will be government entities from other countries, such as China, rushing in to “help”. And large, organized government entities will be able to mount door to door search parties…confiscate any “excess” food or other supplies…confiscate weapons which will of course be outlawed…and pretty much anything else they want to do. In that case, all bets are off.
Prepping is a myth, as we have always stored extra food for at least a 72 hour incident. Many of us usually by experience have been snowed in a few days in the northern states to be prepared.
A lot of us live in small towns and suburban neighborhoods that keeping horses and donkeys is a no go. Shelter is limited while looking for a food source to keep them from starving.
EMP and SHTF is the survival industry’s renewed fear mongering today as it was for those back in Seventies. People bought tons of survival gear and food that was a waste of money spent.
The real crisis today is housing illegals and spending on foreign wars. It all can be funded by defunding our foreign aid to all those needy countries. Europe is not paying their fair share in NATO and the Ukraine war. We need to secure our southern border first.
As someone said before in a post, let those elitist in foreign countries take care of their own poor, not us taxpayers here.
I had a kill switch installed in my car. It is a hidden tile switch that only I know where it is. I park the car, hit the switch while making sure no one is watching me – it kills the fuel AND the power. That car is dead as a stone. And, even if they did manage to get it to power up… They would have enough fuel to get about a block if that.
It took my mechanic two hours and only cost me about $189.
If someone wants a vehicle bad enough, I guess they could always somehow load it onto a trailer and take it… But having no fuel and no power going to anything is going to be a huge deterrent.
My Tesla had a kill switch installed and shorted out the electrical system. The car caught on fire. I went back to a diesel truck, much happier.
Good ideas. However comma the steering wheel lock is just an invitation for the criminals that want to prove how in effective they are. Saw throughout the steering wheel and the lock slides right off.
To all. I read these comments for interesting and often times enlightening information. That said, if I can’t read them I can’t glean the information or content. Clancy and Spicelady; you both have made valid points. However, considering that most folks here are of the age where primary education taught us to read and write with some knowledge of the English language, there really is no excuse for not using that knowledge power to convey our thoughts.
Periods, commas, CAPITOL LETTERS at the beginning of a new sentence, all help convey the writers thoughts, without the reader (myself) having to re-read a sentence two or more times to understand it.
QUIT BEING LIKE YOUR CHILDREN……….DAMNED LAZY !!!
Thanks, peace out.
Using a locking gas cap is not recommended In both LA and Phoenix, gas thieves were simply sliding a drip pan under the vehicles and punching a hole in the gas tank to drain the gas. So figure out how much gas you’re willing to part with (counter-intuitive to keeping your vehicle always close to full for emergency–store emergency gas in cans elsewhere) and let the miscreants siphon away–much cheaper then replacing a gas tank
How on earth is this looter proof? It’s a mix of common knowledge and adding obscure locks to prevent someone stealing the car. It doesn’t stop someone breaking the window and searching it anyways.
If you know who your thief is and you go after them your self.
and they know your after them,
They tend to keep a low profile
and when they think you have let up,
There back to there dirty tricks of robbing you.
One thing they all know.
They bone up on how to pick locks.
Case your property.
Learn your daily habit’s..
How do they block your camera ‘s
They use NIR LEAD LIGHTS
SO BRIGHT IT THROWS OFF LIGHT ON THE CAMERA..
OR A ITEM THEY WAER ON THERE COLTHING THAT IS ON DETECHABLE .
IT MAKES THE PICTURE GO ALL WHITE..
How do I know all this ,
Because I have found a book that is telling me every thing I have been looking for answers to.
But this book cost a bout $75,00 .
But well worth every penny .
Wrote by a Former CIA officer.
520 page book.
Time and money and time to study .
When going after a crook,
You got to be up on your came.
The Idea is to fid out where they live.
Then Robb them of every thing they Robbed others of.
Have no shame ,
They don’t.
Go after them like the low life scum they really are.
Note
If someone you think is a friend and he offers you something to buy.
And the price is to good to be true for what you know that it is really worth.
More then likely your friend is a thief,
It cost him nothing ,
So what ever he sells it for is profit in his packet.
And he could care less if you get nailed with it,
And he says he is selling it for a friend.
Why does he not put it in a newspaper add..
And he will not give his friends name .
So you have nothing to back check.
These are people that steel stuff they can sell quik.
And they know not what to take as it may raises to many questions .
They may even try to sell it at a pond shop.
Look be for you buy, . How old it it,
Are there any marking on it,
Is it a name on it
Dose it have serial numbers.
If there removed,
Chances are its been stole.
No way to do a back check on it..
Contacted a dealer of the product ,
He may be able to tell you what it cost when it was new.
Check with your local police to find out if your area has had any break ins,
you live in,
Most locks can be picked,
And cameras shilled .
so you can not get a picture,
I have been fighting this most of my life.
You have to be your own detective.
Be smart and be safe,
Some times the only way to catch them.
Is when its happening .
But crooks always return when they think every thing has cooled off.
This is when you must be most a on your game,
Calm be for the storm.
,