I explained as I was asked.
Hear, hear. I can,'t believe some of the stuff I’ve just read from cbaileyuk “barrister” - more like barrack room lawyer.
What I said a number of times on this thread is that it (I) should have left it for Ade. I apologise for that aspect as it ended up diluting Ade’s struggle. As pointed out previously, this is about Ade.
The alarm rant needs another thread,
No it doesn’t
Kindly refrain from this type of posting on this friendly forum
Hear Hear Ian. Agree 100%.
Guys, we’re all supposed to be on the same side, aren’t we?
In my view, forums become very dysfunctional when they stray onto topics where there is a gulf of perspective, insight and experience between posters. Lets just say that’s what happened here and move on eh.
Exiges is the place you can come even when the chips are down, where someone will always buy you a (virtual) pint and talk about a load of bollocks around the topic we all have shared experiences and passion…plastic cars!
I am up for that.
From Johnny’s response to me yesterday evening, it is clear he has had a very painful experience. It was certainly never my intention to offend him or others. My sole goal was to understand if the OP had an alarm, to try and understand the lengths the perpetrators had gone to.
As I have said above, I apologise for diluting the thread with that information. Further, to Johnny, if I offended you with my questions, apologies to you. I certainly don’t want to upset an establish club of like minded individuals.
Ade, hope all is well.
… and a ‘real’ one from time to time too mate!!! 
Happily bud,…in the bar after Anglesey yeah 
Order=Restored
Now Ade, about that southerners meet up. Lets have a Xmas curry and a shandy (weak one of course) for us Southern pooftas. Sounds like you need a hand giving 2014 a kick up the jacksie as it exits the building…I’ll start another thread.
Sorry been stuck in a field. Not offended, lifes too short. Three times the victim sadly in very different ways, leaves a mark I guess. One to raise a giggle over a beer.
Well done, Benja for cooling matters (and baileyuk for apology)
Let’s get back to talking drivel.
Watching the lads playing football jonny.
Must have been terrible for you and your family going through those theft experiences jonny
Manage and coaching Pete, it’s very rewarding done in a VERY positive way.
(edit: not clapping at the victim bit! 
)
So sorry to hear Ade. 
- that is and should be the primary focal point of this thread.
However, I don’t like the fact that we are going to try and dampen down a potentially very interesting debate because two peoples views differ on the subject.
I have a very recent experience that is very relevant to this thread, having been woken up in the middle of the night by the sound of a smash and an alarm going off for 10 secs or so.
I shot out of bed, looked out the window, and could see nothing - the alarm had stopped. I could hear voices… my wife then says, “Dave, it’s your car”… within about 20 seconds I was outside completely starkers trying to chase after the bastards. After getting some info from the neighbours who had also woken and saw them, I put some shorts on and did my best Forrest Gump impression and ran in the direction they were seen going.
Nothing found, so I went back home to discover they had smashed the drivers side window. I then decided to arm myself with a breaker bar (always keep one beside the bed) and drive around the block in our other car to see if I could find the little shits. Nothing discovered.
During all of this, I was convinced they were hoodies or kids… there were 4 of them according to my wife/neighbour. Over the next day or so, I began to believe and still do that it was far more ‘professional’ than that. I had heard of M3’s getting taken by key cloning before, as it was well publicised, but I foolishly believed Audis to be immune to it (hence my original thoughts that they must have been kids because it’s stupid to think they would get the car without the keys). However, it seems that pretty much all cars are vulnerable to this key cloning / OBD port theft - and in fact that is most probably how they silenced the car alarm so quickly.
It’s only after the fact you think about ‘should I have chased after them?’ - the logical/most sensible answer is probably no, but I am pretty sure I would do it again. It’s a long conversation to explain why, so I won’t go into it here.
We have an alarm on the house (which was installed years ago after a burglary where it was obvious that they were in the house at the bottom of the stairs whilst we were sleeping). We went through a period of not arming it at night (more out of laziness and worrying it would wake the baby when we armed it) - but we absolutely arm it every night now. Why ? - because I would rather know that someone is in the house and prepare for it rather than be woken up with a baseball bat to my head !!
If they are the type to ‘do anything at any cost’ - then I would rather at least have the chance to prepare for it !! - so I’m with cbaileyuk on that one.
As an aside - I hope people reading this think about their OBD ports on their cars (Audi/BMW/Mercedes/Range Rover/Ford etc,etc) and consider OBD security as a very serious/real threat.
Watch this video for a prime example of how quick/easy it is… and ignore the ‘keyless entry’ line - it’s effectively any car with an electronic key.
Yeah the ODB engineering hack is a weakness point on all modern cars. When the BMW key thing was going around the news (I had a E90 too) I de-pinned the port under the dash subtly, you’d get power but no CAN.
Weirdly, only on cars without proper keys that you stick in a hole to release the steering lock. All the poverty spec stuff isn’t affected.
Didn’t help that BMW put the OBD port in an area not protected by the interior sensor. And denied it was a problem for a couple of years. And now charge customers to turn this ‘feature’ off.
You have to love BMW
Design something that’s easy to hack and then charge lots to code it out if customers request it…How many would know until after the car is stolen?