It worked I caught a dude tring to steal my festiva.

[bassman]

As some of you know i own a 93 black automatic festiva.
I use it to deliver pizza for my business and also as daily driver.
I always let it run when i go up to a house or into a building as i know that you cant take it.
why???
well auto festiva's have a shifter lock that wont let you shift it into gear unless you push the brake pedal.
I only explain this for you stardard festiva guys.
so what i did was put a little push button switch in a hidden easy accessible place that i push to relese the shifter.
so tonight i go into a hotel to deliver a pizza and i come out to see a kid and his buddy in my car tring to drive off.
well me being 6 foot 3 and 280 i look into my car and ask what the h!@# the are doing and the one runs but the driver is in my hand tring to shake loose his jacket i pull him out and the look on his face was priceless.
now crying he says he was joking around and i ask him if he knows my name and if he does i will let him go...
his reply was wrong by saying he cant think.
now i know if i call the cops they will get nothing and if i beat him i may get charged so in my head i am tring to think what i can do that wont get in into trouble and teach him a lesson.
so i take off his jacket and shoes
now being winter but not all that cold he is looking real scared.
then i say off with the pants and shirt he looks and tries to run and i grabhim and slam him into the ground and yell to remove his clothes
now i have the KFC chicken guys outside watching and they know me and ask whats up i tell them and they just smile and ask if i want to call the cops.
i say no call a ambulance the kidis freaking .
so now the kid is in his shorts and i say run now !@#$er so he does .
not far cause he is almost naked.
the best part was him yelling at me and me taking all his clothes and dropping them into the used oil behind kfc.
then up pull the cops i tell them my story and they tell me to next time call them and take the kid into there car .
turns out they were from out of town and were busted on the weekend for stealing a mp3 player from the mall.
the cops said it was the funniest thing they say so far this year.
so i would say the little button is a good idea.

shayne

[25Horseplay]

I am surprised you didn't get into trouble, but I guess if you didn't force/rip off his clothes what could they do? Maybe next time shut your car off, just so you don't get in trouble. But that is funny, it would have been great to see the look on his face!

[bassman]

I should explain a little further .
I live in a city of 16000 so crime here is low.
where these kids are from is a town 80 miles from here that is mostly native .
they will load up a car or van of kids and come here to cause crap.
about 5 years ago 3 16 year olds came here with a bb gun and shot out over 150 car windows.
when they went to court there was standing room only as most repairs were out of pocket cause insurance dosent cover a $125 dollar window.
the people wanted some sort of payback and when they found out it was 3 kids from this same town alot of them took a drive to talk to some parents there .
the relationship with that town and here was so bad that on weekends the cops set up a road block to keep us from them.
other than that NOTHING really happens here .

shayne

[Tim]

Good for you!

I wish I could've been there to see what you did to those kids....

[anomoly40]

That used oil is funky. I used to work at a seafood restaurant and the oil we took out there every night stunk. I can't even imagine the smell of that after it ferments.

[Safety Guy]

Good story! Call the cops next time. You're lucky they had a sense of humor.

Your "little button" idea sounds good. I'll investigate that in the spring.

Karl

[packrat427]

That's a good one

[gdawgs]

NICE! Great idea with the hidden switch.

I live in a low crime area as well, and I leave my car running often in the winter time when it's cold. Mine's a manual so it could easily be stolen. Never has been though.

Probably because many other people leave there cars running to, so a Festiva wouldn't be real high on the hot cars list.

[FB71]

the cops around here do that, too. they have a thing called a 'Treadco'. its an air bladder/squeeze bulb about the size of a silver dollar connected to a pressure switch, located somewhere under the carpet, near the driver's left foot. the officer must step on that and the brake to release the shift interlock.

[oxbrain]

It would be pretty easy to wire a solenoid into the e-brake release so it wouldn't release unless you pressed a hidden switch.

You might be able to make a manual switch. It wouldn't be as easy to hide though.

[gtd2000]

I think I'd have lost the plot personally..... :twisted:

Very unlikely they'd get out of a beating in this part of the world doing that kind of thing.

It was a good read though - but I'd certainly lock my car up whenever I leave it these days.

[aithanmier]

yeah good story. sad part is that even if the kid is charded it'll only be for tampering. probably get a 7 day shock and be on his merry way. The system is so messed up. thats why i left the sheriff's department. i got tired of seeing the same people over and over again, and still they didn't get any serious time. usually they stayed in jail until court, pled guilty and got out with time served.