Campervan got stolen last night at the premier inn in Dunstable if you are in the area please let me know if you see it.

Hundreds of hours of our lives went into it.

Utter ****!

Christ that’s awful. We’ve been there, it’s gut wrenching. I hope you find it soon and it’s in the condition you left it in.

Get the local police to put it on social media, local news sites etc and circulate asap. The graphics on the side are quite distinctive. As it’s a motorhome, it’s a high value vehicle theft so they should be doing their best to recover it. Much more then ANPR checks, they should be out looking for it

One school of thought is that the bad guys take them and leave them under a railway arch locally for a few days. If nobody turns up for it, the assumption is that it doesn’t have a tracker and is safe to move on, or dismantle. It could be worth driving around yourself to look for it.  Does it have a tracker?

Bastards!

I’m in St albans so not far away. Will keep an eye out.

Thanks

No tracker I’m afraid.

Unfortunately I don’t know the area and was only visiting so can’t go searching as now don’t have a vehicle.

I hope it turns up soon
🤞

Absolute *****!

Do you know how they managed to steal it?

No idea. The smashed the passenger window that’s all I know

I live nearby, I’ll keep my eye out for it!

Christ that’s awful.

I think it looks quite smart in the photo’s…

(Sorry, probably too soon, I hope you get it back in one piece)

Start pulling receipts and invoices out for as much of the money you’ve out into it as you can, even if it is recovered there’s no guarantee they won’t have started stripping items out of it to fence off invidually now so you’ll want to be able to reclaim as much as you can via insurance.

Sadly not sure what the score is for customised vehicles unless you declared lots of the fit out and stuff you’ve installed.

Hope you get sorted mate, that’s shit.

Awesome news it has been recovered. A member of the public seen it and felt some thing was wrong. The police came and collected it.

Damage doesn’t look to bad. Broken window lock drilled and hot wired.

Not yet been gutted

Good result!!!

Happy to hear that you got it back in mostly the same state it was knicked.

Excellent news, though that of course now leaves us free to ask the more pertinent and much more difficult questions:

and was only visiting

Dunstable

Why?

Has it still got the same engine in?

Looks like a great van, glad to hear it’s been recovered 🙂

@blakec – that’s great news !!

Phew! That van looked awesome, you must be glad to have it back. Hopefully the dicks who took it will be put away. Nice to have some good news for a change!

My home town strikes again!

Glad you got it back

The police came and collected it.

Were they able to lift the scrotes who took it and chop their fingers off, one by one?
Awesome looking van with so much work put into it, and some feckers think they can just help themselves.

A member of the public seen it and felt some thing was wrong.

Kudos to them!

My money is that it was found round the corner in Houghton Regis.

Parked up to see if it’s got a tracker on it and gets recovered? I’d get a tracker/wheel lock/ghost immobiliser etc… asap

Parked up to see if it’s got a tracker on it and gets recovered?

Honest guess would be they nicked it wanting a van and or tools. Found no tools and a “van” but with a load space full of stuff they couldn’t easily pull out to flog it.

To answer the questions

Dunstable why? Visiting friends

Currently looking at extra security that and I will be way more paranoid about it and where it’s left.

As far as I am aware it still has an engine.

The car park was full of vans I think they went to steel a van and mine was the one they picked. For what reason I’m not sure. But it won’t be as easy next time.
It certainly wasn’t the first vehicle stolen by the way the receptionist acted when I asked for cctv. Will be interesting to see if my impact driver and a bunch of hex is still in the back then.

Pleased you’ve got it back, got to ask why you’ve parked a campervan at a hotel?

Good news that you have it back, there are few worse feelings than walking towards where your car/van was parked and finding it missing.

Glad you got it back – I know how much work goes into them.

Wow lucky to get it back, seems more often than not that they’re never seen again.

We too have a Relay that we’ve poured months of our lives in to and definitely considering some extra security for it.

So far I’ve fitted a tracker (one with an app that I can monitor myself) but not done anything else yet.

Things I’m wondering about are door handle reinforcing plates, pedal lock, OBD port lock / cover, Ghost immobiliser.

IIRC Ducato/Relay/Boxer have recently become susceptible to ODB port attack/cloning joining Ford’s so make sure that is protected as ‘hotwiring’ isn’t really a thing anymore.

@RustyNissanPrairie how to protect it though?

A cover / lock or relocate it? Is your average thief clued  up enough to just jump on to the right colour wires or if they can’t plug in to the port are they giving up and moving on to the next van? 🤷🏻‍♂️

Move it, stick a dummy socket there.

If your feeling mean wire every pin up to 12v.

Amazing that it’s been recovered 🙂

I keep meaning to make a few changes to my van, although things like large plastic roof lights and no bulkhead mean any security upgrades are always going to be limited.

Security window film on the side windows of the cab as it takes a little longer to clear the shattered window (often enough of a deterrent to put off a chancer)

Old fashioned steering wheel lock (although my van is Iveco and apparently the immobilizer on them is practically undefeatable (they have a non-standard OBD too)

Handle/lock armouring I’m not sure about…it would need to be a naive thief to bother trying to prise the locks out when there are windows in the side, although the camper ones are double glazed acrylic so probably harder to break than the glass ones.

Move it, stick a dummy socket there.

If your feeling mean wire every pin up to 12v

That might not go down too well when you forget and your mechanic/breakdown service plug in to repair the van? Although I’d like to think decent kit would have built in protection I wouldn’t want to find out the hard way!

A dummy one is a good idea though.

It’s all about deterrents. If the naughty person is just an opportunistic thief then anything obvious like a yellow steering wheel lock or deadlocks will deter them. It’ll be too much bother for them so they’ll move away and attack a softer target.

The organised pro thief/gang will behave similarly but will have tools to get around many defences. Repositioning your OBD/ECU and putting it in a box/shield that takes a long time to angle grind is a great defence. Wheel clamps or pedal locks are good when at home but not really portable.

It’s also incredibly annoying that insurers only seen to care about alarms and trackers.

It’s all about deterrents. If the naughty person is just an opportunistic thief then anything obvious like a yellow steering wheel lock or deadlocks will deter them. It’ll be too much bother for them so they’ll move away and attack a softer target.

^ This. Aim to be more secure (and more of a PITA) than the next vehicle and the opportunist will move along. It’s the swimming/shark analogy: you don’t need to be a fast swimmer, only faster than your mate.

I’ve got Stoplock Pro steering locks in my Transit and car: https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/product-group-tests/95031/best-steering-wheel-locks-2021. Tried a Disclock but it was too cumbersome to use whereas the Stoplock is simple enough that I use it every time I leave the car.

OBD2 ports relocated.

No trackers as I’d rather not have them back if stolen and abused, but I’d feel differently on a more unique vehicle such as a camper built to your exact spec, etc.

I’ve not bothered with plates/shields around the locks on my Transit although a LOT of owners do. They don’t seem to stop thieves though as some will simply cut around the plate.

Wheel clamps or pedal locks are good when at home but not really portable.

You’d have thought there’d be room in such a big van 😉