1993 FJ80 stolen (1 Viewer)

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.

Very happy to see that you got most of your cruiser back. Other than what's obviously stolen, how's its condition?
 
Steal the $400 rims and a rack and forego the 29K vehicle. Dumb and dumber. But, glad you got it back, that’s awesome! Posting here was the right thing to do. Best to you on getting everything back together. Buy a tracker, a decoy, and alarm.
 
Steal the $400 rims and a rack and forego the 29K vehicle. Dumb and dumber. But, glad you got it back, that’s awesome! Posting here was the right thing to do. Best to you on getting everything back together. Buy a tracker, a decoy, and alarm.
How would they sell it with the VIN being flagged as stolen though?

I suppose they could chop it up, but that's a pretty niche market for parts and people might be on the look out for suspicious part sales.

I've heard of them being taken south of the border, but idk what they'd even do with it down there.
 
How would they sell it with the VIN being flagged as stolen though?
Transfer the VIN tag from a wrecked 80 with a clean title. I knew a guy who did this. He cut a section out from under the dashboard an inch or two beyond the VIN plate, then JB Welded it into the stolen vehicle. It only became a problem when he moved to a new state. Since his VIN came from a vehicle tagged as rebuilt/reconstructed/salvage, the police check for a secret VIN somewhere on the vehicle at the DMV. No clue how secret those locations still are, but I had to have my own Celica checked back in '98 when I moved states.

You could also just sell the vehicle in a country that doesn't care about it being stolen, but you're not going to get that sweet, sweet American "expo"/overlanding (i.e. expensive car-camping) BaT money.
 
Transfer the VIN tag from a wrecked 80 with a clean title. I knew a guy who did this. He cut a section out from under the dashboard an inch or two beyond the VIN plate, then JB Welded it into the stolen vehicle. It only became a problem when he moved to a new state. Since his VIN came from a vehicle tagged as rebuilt/reconstructed/salvage, the police check for a secret VIN somewhere on the vehicle at the DMV. No clue how secret those locations still are, but I had to have my own Celica checked back in '98 when I moved states.

You could also just sell the vehicle in a country that doesn't care about it being stolen, but you're not going to get that sweet, sweet American "expo"/overlanding (i.e. expensive car-camping) BaT money.
I thought you could find the VIN in at least three different places on most cars. Anyway seems like a lot of trouble to go to. I thought more widely owned cars like Outback’s and Camrys with remote start were bigger targets for car thieves.
 
I thought you could find the VIN in at least three different places on most cars. Anyway seems like a lot of trouble to go to. I thought more widely owned cars like Outback’s and Camrys with remote start were bigger targets for car thieves.
I think modern cars have the VIN or some other identifying code on every single body panel. To my knowledge, 80s fall in that sweet spot of 90s vehicles that were reliable enough to last a long time, plus easy to steal and part out. I seem to recall that the top theft targets were Honda Civics and -- bizarrely -- Saturns. I never understood why anyone would want to steal a Saturn...
 
It's really not much work and or money to add security to a 80 series and make it much more difficult to steal. Should be one of the first things done after purchase of the rig in my opinion. Even if the vehicle is retrieved from theft, all the work of getting it back and repairing theft damage cost much more time and money.
 
I think modern cars have the VIN or some other identifying code on every single body panel. To my knowledge, 80s fall in that sweet spot of 90s vehicles that were reliable enough to last a long time, plus easy to steal and part out. I seem to recall that the top theft targets were Honda Civics and -- bizarrely -- Saturns. I never understood why anyone would want to steal a Saturn...
There are a lot of cars that are stolen just to use for transportation by drug addicts and found at casinos. I bet the Saturn's were easy to steal.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top Bottom