Epidemic of Model 3 small window break-ins

[rainforest]

It doesn't take long for a smash and grab.

Sentry mode - thieves will just wear hoodies to cover their face.

Enhanced auto theft - Thieves will be gone before police show up.
No one pays any attention to alarms anyway. Would you confront a thief if it wasn't your car? Even if you call police they are long gone.
Only thing you can do is get a license plate and description and then wait for police to show up then give your statement.

Even if it were your car would you confront them? Is your life worth whatever they take or the damage they do to your car?

The only solution is to have nothing in the trunk and the seats folded down.
I told my wife to fold the seat down whenever she parks anywhere. The problem with her car, is the windows are tinted and you can't really see that the seats are folded down. So I purchased these window cling stickers and have her put them on whenever she parks anywhere. She can remove them anytime since it's a window cling.

This does not guarantee that the thieves will not break the window. Maybe the thieves will see the sticker and see that the seats are down and they just move onto the next car.

I also put a remote controlled light in the trunk. At night with tinted windows you can't see that the seats are folded down inside, with the light it illuminates the trunk showing that there is nothing in the truck.

View attachment 371472

That’s very unfortunate that it has come down to this where owners need to plead to have their cars spared.

 

[TEG]

Sentry mode - thieves will just wear hoodies to cover their face.

Maybe Tesla Neural-Network can have a hoodie-detector and start honking the horn if someone in a hoodie gets near the car?

 

[AKMA]

Joined the club after about 3 weeks of ownership and I don't even have my plates yet! Happened to me in San Jose on N 1st Street the plaza right across from the Samsung building.

I was gone for about 10-minutes picking up dinner and returned with a smashed window. Luckily nothing was stolen.

 

[rainforest]

Joined the club after about 3 weeks of ownership and I don't even have my plates yet! Happened to me in San Jose on N 1st Street the plaza right across from the Samsung building.

I was gone for about 10-minutes picking up dinner and returned with a smashed window. Luckily nothing was stolen.

That's too bad. Here in Vancouver, Canada, window smashes are very rare.

 

[RayK]

Joined the club after about 3 weeks of ownership and I don't even have my plates yet! Happened to me in San Jose on N 1st Street the plaza right across from the Samsung building.

D@mn! I work there (Samsung). Go to that corner store to buy lottery tickets every now and then. What time of day?

 

[Donatas]

Is it true that Model 3's rear doors don't have manual emergency opening from the inside?
If yes there could be easy way for Tesla to stop all of this with a software update by just making rear doors inside open handles inactive when car is locked. This would make it impossible for thieves to open the doors and make their job way harder.

 

[AKMA]

D@mn! I work there (Samsung). Go to that corner store to buy lottery tickets every now and then. What time of day?

Happened between 8:40pm to 8:49pm this past Monday. The plaza isn't very well lit at night, but there was a lot of foot traffic in the area at the time so I'm surprised no one heard or saw it happen. Had some groceries in the trunk, but it obviously wasn't what they were hoping for.

I guess i'll be leaving my back seats down from now on.

 

[rainforest]

Happened between 8:40pm to 8:49pm this past Monday. The plaza isn't very well lit at night, but there was a lot of foot traffic in the area at the time so I'm surprised no one heard or saw it happen. Had some groceries in the trunk, but it obviously wasn't what they were hoping for.

I guess i'll be leaving my back seats down from now on.

I wonder if they designed a lock for the folding rear bench that could be swapped out for the existing one, and whether this would prevent all of these breakins. I think they could even charge owners for this change if they want it, and people would be happy to pay.

 

[TEG]

Is it true that Model 3's rear doors don't have manual emergency opening from the inside?
If yes there could be easy way for Tesla to stop all of this with a software update by just making rear doors inside open handles inactive when car is locked. This would make it impossible for thieves to open the doors and make their job way harder.

They do not have manual release on the back door.
Countless videos have shown that those breaking into cars are willing to break the back windows to climb in even if the door is locked.
It seems the small corner window is just a "discrete way to put down the back seats to check if anything is in the trunk".
If they then spotted something looking valuable (like a laptop case for instance), then they also break the big window on the door...

 

[Donatas]

They do not have manual release on the back door.
Countless videos have shown that those breaking into cars are willing to break the back windows to climb in even if the door is locked.
It seems the small corner window is just a "discrete way to put down the back seats to check if anything is in the trunk".
If they then spotted something looking valuable (like a laptop case for instance), then they also break the big window on the door...

I thought that if they see something valuable they break main window and open doors from inside to get in but if they are already so adventurous to climb through the window anyway it's obviously not as easy to stop them as I thought

 

[mainecoon]

Some images from "Ghost Town

I had to drive through there to take pictures for a college project years ago all the while hoping the car wasn't going to break down.

 

[Reid]

Maybe Tesla Neural-Network can have a hoodie-detector and start honking the horn if someone in a hoodie gets near the car?

Great, so now my alarm goes off every time I walk towards the car to drive to work in the AM?

 

[EVnut]

The only solution is to have nothing in the trunk and the seats folded down.

We can't really talk of a "solution" that doesn't stop the break-ins. I agree that having nothing in the car means that nothing will be stolen. But windows are still being broken on cars that have the seats down, trunk empty. And if the windows are broken, that's still something being "stolen" from us. Protecting our own stuff is one thing, a *solution* stops it from happening, IMO.

 

[EVnut]

EVnut - I think this may depend on how backlogged the Tesla service centers are, where one lives.

Correct. And I just wanted to point out that this is significantly different than "Service Centers are not replacing the glass."

My bet (and experience) is that the closer you are to the BA, the lower the chance that the SC will do it directly. I was certainly happy with the $200 savings my SC offered over the third-party glass places.

 

[Matek]

We can't really talk of a "solution" that doesn't stop the break-ins. I agree that having nothing in the car means that nothing will be stolen. But windows are still being broken on cars that have the seats down, trunk empty. And if the windows are broken, that's still something being "stolen" from us. Protecting our own stuff is one thing, a *solution* stops it from happening, IMO.

Hi all. This is my first post to this forum. I've been salivating over a M3 for awhile now, but I live in the SF Bay Area and know of a few M3 break ins, and this is the one issue that is keeping me unfortunately from buying my dream car right now. I think solution #1 is obvious. There are a lot of luxury-ish 4-door sedans with trunks in the Bay Area that are not being broken into, and a lot of them have something in common: you can't fold down the rear seats by first pushing a button or lever on the seat itself; rather, you have to push a button or lever from the trunk. My current car that I'd love to replace is like that, and I've never had any problems with break-ins. I've read in this thread that some think there is some organization to the break-ins. I agree with that, and think that a lot of the break-ins are happening because those who do the breaking in are aware of how easy it easy to access the trunk. They don't bother with my car, because they know that they can't access the trunk the same way. If Tesla moved the lever from the seat to the trunk, it would make it a lot harder to access the trunk, and eventually break ins would decline as thieves realize that they no longer can easily access the trunk.

 

[EVnut]

Hi all. This is my first post to this forum. I've been salivating over a M3 for awhile now, but I live in the SF Bay Area and know of a few M3 break ins, and this is the one issue that is keeping me unfortunately from buying my dream car right now. I think solution #1 is obvious. There are a lot of luxury-ish 4-door sedans with trunks in the Bay Area that are not being broken into, and a lot of them have something in common: you can't fold down the rear seats by first pushing a button or lever on the seat itself; rather, you have to push a button or lever from the trunk. My current car that I'd love to replace is like that, and I've never had any problems with break-ins. I've read in this thread that some think there is some organization to the break-ins. I agree with that, and think that a lot of the break-ins are happening because those who do the breaking in are aware of how easy it easy to access the trunk. They don't bother with my car, because they know that they can't access the trunk the same way. If Tesla moved the lever from the seat to the trunk, it would make it a lot harder to access the trunk, and eventually break ins would decline as thieves realize that they no longer can easily access the trunk.

Welcome Matek. And yeah... sorry for the bad news. It's amazing that we're here: Can't buy the car I want for fear of it being vandalized.

The thieves think that I'm suddenly rich because I drive a Tesla now. Sadly, I'm much less rich than I was before this purchase! And I don't take anything with me in the Tesla that I didn't also take in my old Prius (that in 13 years of parking in SF has never been broken into).

 

[RayK]

Is it true that Model 3's rear doors don't have manual emergency opening from the inside?
If yes there could be easy way for Tesla to stop all of this with a software update by just making rear doors inside open handles inactive when car is locked. This would make it impossible for thieves to open the doors and make their job way harder.

Yes there is no manual emergency unlock handle for the rear doors. The main reason why thieves break the rear door windows is that they know that if the car's alarm is armed, opening the door (by any means) will set it off.

 

[EVnut]

The main reason why thieves break the rear door windows is that they know that if the car's alarm is armed, opening the door (by any means) will set it off.

Which of course flies in the face of all those who claim that alarms are useless. The same as you point out here, the thieves generally do everything they can to avoid setting off the alarm, so it must have *some* affect on this process. Meaning that if it always alarmed with the glass break, we may make some progress... I know for sure it would have helped in my situation where I was near enough to have heard the alarm (or respond to an alert from the app).

 

[RayK]

Which of course flies in the face of all those who claim that alarms are useless. The same as you point out here, the thieves generally do everything they can to avoid setting off the alarm, so it must have *some* affect on this process. Meaning that if it always alarmed with the glass break, we may make some progress... I know for sure it would have helped in my situation where I was near enough to have heard the alarm (or respond to an alert from the app).

It would be nice if Tesla comes up with an ultrasonic/infrared sensor that detects movement inside the car and sets off the alarm when it's locked. Better yet, glass breakage sensors so there's a few seconds earlier warning. Even better still, moving the rear seat release handles to inside the trunk like on my BMW 3-series.

 

[EVnut]

Just because we're on page 38 in this thread (not counting the other 20 or so threads around the 'net on the same subject) I figure it is time to post every solution to this problem that I have learned over the months that this has been discussed. This should save time for any new contributors. You may be able to just choose a number and save all that typing. You may have to fill in a blank or two though. Ready?

1. California/SF Bay Area/SF sucks. Live somewhere else.
2. This only happens in the Bay Area.
3. This happens everywhere.
4. Don’t park anywhere but in a secure location.
5. Don’t park in a bad part of town.
6. Don’t park in a good part of town.
7. Don’t park.
8. Always valet park.
9. This isn’t only happening to Teslas.
10. It is because you drive a Tesla.
11. Don’t buy or drive a nice car.
12. This is no big deal. Suck it up and pay to play.
13. Decrease your comprehensive deductible.
14. This is a horrible design flaw that Tesla needs to fix.
15. This isn’t Tesla’s fault.
16. Take all your cargo with you when you park.
17. Never use the trunk for cargo.
18. Don’t leave anything in the car.
19. Put all your cargo in the subtrunk/frunk.
20. Leave both rear seats down.
21. Leave the windows down.
22. Leave the car unlocked.
23. Don’t tint the back glass.
24. Tint the back glass.
25. Use security film on all glass.
26. A visible seat lock will inspire a break-in.
27. A visible seat lock will deter a break-in.
28. Locking the seat release is so easy to defeat with ________.
29. Because the glass will still be smashed, hidden locks are no use.
30. Install a baby seat.
31. Install two baby seats.
32. Install three baby seats.
33. The only solution is __________.
34. A thief will always __________.
35. A thief will never __________.
36. That’s now how thieves think/this is how thieves thing.
37. There’s nothing that will stop a thief.
38. The problem is liberals.
39. The problem is that criminals have more rights than property owners.
40. Use a gun.
41. Booby-trap everything.
42. Replace quarter window with something unbreakable.
43. Don’t strengthen the quarter window, as then the door glass will be broken.
44. Car alarms are useless.
45. Tesla needs a better alarm.
46. Use an aftermarket alarm/cameras.
47. Cameras are useless.
48. The trunk lid can be pried open in a second.
49. Leave somebody in the car.