Stolen Audi S3 (recovered without 1 hour)

F

FireTrack

Registered User
Joined
Jul 25, 2011
Messages
4
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Location
London
Yesterday I had my 2001 S3 stolen from outside my house in the middle of the night. However noticing it had gone I called the police and then Tracker. Within a few minutes of the tracker system being activated the police had picked up the signal and within the hour they had arrested a number of people in connection with the theif of my car. A good result.

My question is how did they drive the car away? I have all 4 sets of keys but the police say the lock cylinder has been damaged but there is no damage to the door locks.

Without the keys it would appear that there is only a small window of opportunity after opening a door to override the alarm system by either presenting a valid transponder (a duplicate has been made?!) or making the alarm believe it has been presented with a vald transponder. Even if the alarm didn't work for some reason a valid transponder is still required to start the engine.

Does anyone know of cases where Audi's have been driven away without using a key? I'm wondering whether a 10 year old immobiliser is still up to the job any more? What does everyone else do? I assume it is not hard to add an additional immobiliser to an Audi S3?

I'm not looking forward to seeing the damage to the lock cylinder or the quote for repaires from Audi.
 
Last edited:
I have no idea how they managed this, seems odd though, how long have you had the car and where did it come from ?

Clifford blackjax is good if you want an additional immobiliser, it requires a pin to be punched in within a few minutes of driving the car, or it cuts out and immobilises. So even with the keys they cant get far, just far enough to be out of your way so they cant physically force the pin out of you.

Clifford (United Kingdom) - Accessories
 
I read about a scam where the thieves intercept the signal from your key fob and stop the doors from locking but keep the lights flashing, making it appear that you've locked your car when you haven't.

Glad you got it back ok :)
 
Lucky you rang it in before they stripped it. As Dane said or they could of gone old school with a door wedge and a coat hanger. Check the gaps around your drivers door.

God I hate thieves!!
 
I've had the car from new and it's only been serviced from the Audi dealer that I purchased the car from. I haven't seen the car yet as forensics are still looking over it but I'll post some pictures when I pick the car up and let you know what Audi say. However I'm sure they will just say "We've never seen this happen before!".

So far I've never been stupid enough to leave my keys in my car but I did panic for a few minutes thinking I had on saturday night!

I'm not to worried about thieves getting into the car as I had assumed the physical security of door locks wouldn't be up to much. However being able to disable the immobilser is very worrying unless it is a time consuming processes. I imagine I'll be keeping a closer eye on whether the alarms has really been set in future though.

What I like about Tracker is that the police have a chance of catching the thieves. However if you can get around the immobiliser and stop the tracker from automatically activating this is going to be a big problem if you don't notice it's gone quick.

The story of where the car was taken is a little odd which i'll post once the investigation is over. I'll also let you what happens to the thieves.

I didn't think that anyone would be interesting in stealing a 10 year old S3!
 
Last edited:
Well there are ways of getting round immobilisers no matter the age of the car, a common theif would just nick the keys, but somebody slightly more professional has all kinds of gadgets, although I'm surprised they would still be targeting 8ls
 
I suspect your alarm siern is dead, like most are at this age.

That way they can silently break in, bypass the immo with the right kit and drive off.
 
Glad your getting the car back mate. Get the car on vagcom and check alarm is working, mine keeps throwing a fault code for mine.
 
I'd love to find out how this was done.

I would guess that if the thieves were abole to disable to imobiliser then they would have also been able to disable the alarm before it sounded. It's not the loudest alarm in the world but in the dead of night it would still deter a thief.
 
Glad your getting your car back mate. Lucky you had the tracker really, i may have to invest in one.
 
The immo is part of the ECU and clocks, you need into the car to fiddle with them. Wouldnt be that hard to bring a de-immo'd ECU along with you, or splice in an immo emulator though.

The alarm sierns quite likely dead though. If they had a cloned remote to disarm the alarm and unlock the car, they wouldnt have had to damage the lock barrel getting in.
 
aragorn said:
The immo is part of the ECU and clocks, you need into the car to fiddle with them. Wouldnt be that hard to bring a de-immo'd ECU along with you, or splice in an immo emulator though.

The alarm sierns quite likely dead though. If they had a cloned remote to disarm the alarm and unlock the car, they wouldnt have had to damage the lock barrel getting in.
Click to expand...

It still seems like a hell of a lot of hassle for a 10 year old car.
 
Sure does!

Something similar happened to a guys RS4 over on AudiSRS a few months back, but obviously an RS4 is worth over 10k.

At least he got the car back though, the RS4 wasnt seen again afaik.
 
there was a spate of thefts at the local m'way services a couple of years ago... traced to a van containing guys who were scanning for peoples alarm codes when they remote locked their cars as they walked away. They returned to find the cars open, undamaged but the contents missing.. Not sure this goes as far as immo, but they were hi-tech enough to unlock the cars having acquired the codes.
 
the immo emulators can probably be plugged into the OBD2 socket to disable the immo, earlier ones needed to be spliced in, maybe thay have found a way around it
 
I'm glad you got the car back mate ;)


I know how they would have got into the car without touching the door locks or using a coat hanger....etc (I'm not posting it here) but i would like to know how they got round the immobiliser on these cars as you need the chip inside the key to bypass it.


Unfortunately these cars are a target for thieves as they make good cars to commit other crimes with. but i still cant see them fiddling around fitting a bypass ecu.



What tracking service are you using?
 
I broke the transponder in my only key the other day, and armed with my laptop and Vagtacho had a new key paired up with the ECU in about 5 minutes.

Only prerequisite to coding the new key is to have the ignition on, which you could do by pulling the switch off the back of the barrel.
 
aragorn said:
I broke the transponder in my only key the other day, and armed with my laptop and Vagtacho had a new key paired up with the ECU in about 5 minutes.

Only prerequisite to coding the new key is to have the ignition on, which you could do by pulling the switch off the back of the barrel.
Click to expand...

Hmmm....

But Isn't it just the central locking / alarm side of the fob that can be programmed with a vag lead (i don't think you even need that if you have two keys)? .
 
no, it was the immobiliser transponder i broke trying to fit it into a new housing.

Baught a new transponder from ebay, put it in the new key and cracked out vagtacho, few mins later the key was coded.
 
aragorn said:
no, it was the immobiliser transponder i broke trying to fit it into a new housing.

Baught a new transponder from ebay, put it in the new key and cracked out vagtacho, few mins later the key was coded.
Click to expand...

Sorry mate i miss read, i thought you said vagcom not vagtacho....lol

I suppose they could have used that.

But then they would have needed to have the correct fob...etc so would defiantly have been pros :(
 
Inertiauk said:
I have no idea how they managed this, seems odd though, how long have you had the car and where did it come from ?

Clifford blackjax is good if you want an additional immobiliser, it requires a pin to be punched in within a few minutes of driving the car, or it cuts out and immobilises. So even with the keys they cant get far, just far enough to be out of your way so they cant physically force the pin out of you.

Clifford (United Kingdom) - Accessories
Click to expand...

Yup thats what mines got :)
4 years of ownership and never been tampered with.. Pain in the *** tho pushing the correct times of number into the two black button on my dash. On the back of the alarm fob is a 4 digiit number and thats the number you tap into the black buttons..Worth it tho :D

Thats it on the far left..
3012o.jpg
 
Last edited:
reptor245 said:
Yup thats what mines got :)
4 years of ownership and never been tampered with.. Pain in the *** tho pushing the correct times of number into the two black button on my dash. On the back of the alarm fob is a 4 digiit number and thats the number you tap into the black buttons..Worth it tho :D

Thats it on the far left..
3012o.jpg
Click to expand...


I wouldn't keep the number on the fob, the idea is if they get your keys they still cant get far, in your case they might still.
 
I visited my car yesterday morning to see if it was drivable. They had completed destroyed the ignition but there appears to be no damage to anything else. See pictures below. It is now possible to turn the ignition on with a screw driver. The reader coil in the ignition has also been damaged so the car can't start. The engine turns over but doesn't fire. Also the engine immobiliser light on the dash flashes.

aragorn was right that the siren on the alarm isn't working so that might be one for everyone to test. Lock the car with the key fob, wait 30 seconds for the alarm to activate, open a door with the key, wait 30 seconds and the alarm will go off. In my case just the hazard lights flash.

My guess, as a rope was found in the boot of the car, is that it was towed away with the ignition broken to release the steering lock. No one is going to pay much attention to a car being towed with it's hazard lights on!

Doesn't look like a high tech steal afterall!

There appears to be no damage to the door locks so I guess there must be an easy way to open them without causing any damage. I'm never assumed that the doors would keep anyone out of the car who knew what they were doing.

scaled.php


dscn2888o.jpg
 
A3 T said:
Sorry mate i miss read, i thought you said vagcom not vagtacho....lol

I suppose they could have used that.

But then they would have needed to have the correct fob...etc so would defiantly have been pros :(
Click to expand...

Not really, theres only a few different types of transponder, and most audis use the HAA key format.

All it would have taken was a quick case out a few days or even hours before to ensure you have the right one based on the year etc.

I dont believe there really are many "non-professional" car theives left tbh. Gone are the days when some young scallys can pop a window thru, hot wire the car in 5 seconds and spend the night rallying it round the estate. As a result, anyone actually stealing cars will either have enough brains to work out how to bypass the immo, or will break into the house first to aquire the keys. This means that nearly all thefts these days are performed by "professional" theives rather than opportunists.
 
****** hell that's a fair bit of damage.

Another easy way to imobilise the car would be to use a Revo SPS box. It has an imobiliser function that means the car can be started but when you try and drive off the engine cuts out.

The only problem with this is that anyone with an SPS box can turn it off. Chances of the thieves having an SPS box is probably quite slim though.
 
Yikes that is quite a hash job then.

Still suggests they specifically wanted that car though, rather than just stealing it to do some other job.
 
The car was obviously a midnight spares special so any1 in ur area needs to keep their eyes open as some1 who has crashed theirs or has an a3 and wants all s3 parts to change the look of their car has put an Order in for a donor car
 
Another good recovery for Tracker then ;) I work for Tracker in the Control Room. I've been off for the past few days so i'm unaware of this but my colleagues will tell me when i get back in because, 1. it's an Audi, and 2. it's an S3! They know how much these cars mean to me :laugh: Glad you got the car back, i HATE it when we get Audi thefts!

Jay
 
Inertiauk said:
I wouldn't keep the number on the fob, the idea is if they get your keys they still cant get far, in your case they might still.
Click to expand...

LOL yeah i ment its on a sticker thats on the back of the fob when you open the box. You remember the number hten throw away the sticker..lol
 
  • Like
Reactions: Inertiauk
Glad you've got your car back

your not from near Ilkeston are you, a black S3 was found dumped this past week or so. Thought to have been used in a local armed robbery
 
Vehicle towed away on a flatbed probably, left round the corner to 'sterilise' it. I.e. if no one turns up in a couple of days it doesn't have tracker so carry on, in your case it did have tracker and you got it back. Excellent.
 
S3Lol - My S3 is completely standard at the moment. I'm always thinking about selling it or getting it chipped but either ever happens! It's still got a MidiDisk player, really must sort that out!

Endacy - I believe the vehicle was towed by another Audi - There was a rope in the back and the police know the two cars returned together. I assume they would have passed a number of ANPR cameras rather than checking video footage. Also whoever sat in the car had put the radio on, as I keep the face plate in the glovebox! Keeping themselves entertained while breaking the law, what is the world coming to! ;)

Sadly I've received a letter today saying the police aren't going to charge the people they had arrested. At least they will have their fingerprints and DNA I guess.

Also still waiting for Audi to come back with a price. A replacement siren is over £200 and they wanted to replace the ignition barrol and all locks and keys for a small fee of £800! As the theives hadn't got hold of the keys I said I'll just have the ignition replaced. Still waiting on a price at the moment. Also towing it back to the Audi garage wasn't cheap at £107. This is all going to add up!
 
Is it the police who has made the decision not to charge or is it the cps?
 
This is really scary, how can the just take the car like that
 
Given the ineptitude of the CPS letting scumbags like this walk free is it any wonder people take things into their own hands, not that i would ever advocate kicking seven shades of cr#p out of them for a moment
 
I wouldnt want the car back after that! I'd take the insurance money.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Alais DJA
STOLEN AUDI**recovered
Replies
24
Views
2K
s3_trev
s3_trev
J
Stolen Recovered Audi S3 2003 Dolphin Grey Brake Upgrade Big Wheels
Replies
11
Views
1K
johal87
J
E
S3 owners hurry, hurry 1 hour to go!
Replies
11
Views
1K
DaveCav
D
S
Engine runs weak after 1 hour of driving.
Replies
4
Views
745
Salveno
S
M
* * * Audi S3 Stolen * * *
Replies
31
Views
3K
monkey_lewis
monkey_lewis
Top
Back