Security cameras don't prevent anything.
This is in Carlsbad (La Co$ta specifically) and this area is not exactly a hot spot for criminal activity.
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Model S smash and grab break-in in La Costa CA
- Thread starter NathanielHrnblwr
- Start date
Security cameras don't prevent anything.
This is in Carlsbad (La Co$ta specifically) and this area is not exactly a hot spot for criminal activity.
GoBlue88
Member
While true, don’t get too complacent even in La Costa. Teslas in particular are an attraction for smash-and-grab jobs. Mine was broken into at the La Costa CVS back in May, right in front of the main entrance, while I was in the store for only 5 minutes. Video surveillance showed the entire incident from when the guy drove up, hopped out, smashed the window, took whatever he could, and leave was about 20 seconds.
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Sorry to hear that and hope they get the scum that would do this. Without video, all they would have is you reporting what was missing so that is why I hope video cameras become part of all charger installations since that would be a logical place to find Teslas and in places like Carlsbad, the urban chargers may encourage owners to leave the car and fequent the local businesses being they charge at a slower rate. We charged at one in Sacramento last week and added 25 kw over about an hours while in the mall there.
SDRick
Active Member
I agree, we cannot get too complacent anywhere in California as smash and grab is no longer really a crime. Or if it still is, there is little if any punishment!
I was the victim of a smash-and-grab in Mountain View in 2012 or thereabouts. I was driving a rental that was missing the cover over the rear cargo area and I'd left my laptop bag there during dinner because the laptop had essentially failed. So he got a broken 4-year-old Mac (with a fully encrypted hard drive that had been backed up to home) and I had to get Visa to pay Enterprise for the window damage. That's another whole story, but I learned my lesson about covering things up. I try not to leave it there anyway, but I have a black sleeve for my laptop that is completely invisible against the Tesla's black seats.
GoBlue88
Member
My black briefcase that was stolen was in the black passenger footwell underneath the glove compartment behind tinted windows at night. Didn't matter that there is no way the thief could have seen it before he smashed my window.
I just bought a new Tesla S. After the first 2 hours of ownership, the back window was broken and my briefcase stolen. I had precious forensic photos, computer, iPhone, and other valuables.
Tesla has no security system to avoid this kind of failure. Palo Alto police informed me that this failure is very common. This was the third car tonight and each night several Tesla’s are broken into.
Tesla has known about this security vulnerability for a long tine and they have done nothing to make my $140k car safe. Unbelieveble!
Tesla has no security system to avoid this kind of failure. Palo Alto police informed me that this failure is very common. This was the third car tonight and each night several Tesla’s are broken into.
Tesla has known about this security vulnerability for a long tine and they have done nothing to make my $140k car safe. Unbelieveble!
Sorry this happened to you, I do understand how you feel, but you must not watch the news in the Bay Area if you didn't know this is a HUGE problem. Car breakins are at historic numbers in the Bay area. San Francisco is probably the worst but it's all up and down the peninsula and east bay. You can read many, many account of owners' breakins here on the forum and in our area. Usually they go for the small window in the rear and flip down the seat although I guess if they think they see something interesting they go for other windows. Last year we were in a restaurant parking lot in San Jose. Our car had a dashcam and we later saw that about 10 minutes after parking the criminals drove through the parking lot casing it. They hit our car (parcel shelf up but nothing inside) and then looked in other cars around us and then did a number on a SUV parked not to far away. Completely ripped out their rear window. Felt really badly for the family. My husband took the time to reported it to the SJ police who pretty much said they didn't have the force to go after all the daily car breakins they get calls for, and that's not taking into account the ones that people don't bother to report because they know nothing will come of it. Seen people's posts of being hit multiple times in San Franciso over a few years.
If you read the posts here in the forum you will see this is happening pretty much unabated. And believe me it's not just Teslas by any means. You'll get quite an education doing a search for "breakin" or such here on the forum and a google search for "car breakin in bay area". Alarms don't deter them as it takes just seconds to break in to a car, grab and dash. Got to see it on our dashcam footage. Look at what is happening to stores like Apple with the run and grabs. I'm amazed at all the number of victims out there in that there hasn't been some real outcry to stamp this crime out or make a huge dent in apprehending it. Just a last week a news crew was victimized and made the news and papers. There was a ring that was busted in Fremont in the last year I think where stuff was fenced and then shipped overseas in short order. But successful apprehension doesn't really touch the numbers of cars hit. Hate to say it but in this area especially don't ever leave any computer equipment or valuables in your car period. Carry it with you or plan your trip where you don't leave your car unattended. Much cheaper to just have damage to repair than that plus items you have to replace if you can.
Tesla does have a door alarm system but it's not going to help you if they smash a small rear window to flip down seating in a Model S to look in the cargo area when you have a parcel shelf up. SUVs/Crossovers are similarly vunerable. They can also just as easily pop a trunk on a sedan (and saw this happen to someone's car in a Home Depot parking lot). As you found out they can smash the back window as well. At one time people had car alarms that got set off in the wind or got bumped and people just stopped reacting to them when they would go off so car manufacturers stopped installing them. Car alarms don't really stop this theft either. And if they stop the thief from rummaging in your car, you are still going to have an expensive repair from the broken glass. BTW people with heavily tinted windows are just a much of a target for this crime as anyone. If the perp can't see inside but thinks you might have a laptop inside, they will take their chance on smashing a window to find out.
Lots of car get broken into, not just Teslas. I have owned cars in the SF Bay area for over 30 years. I have yet to have any broken in to.
Don't leave anything of value in the car. Try to park in good lighting and where there's people around. Good luck.
It is common throughout the Bay Area and is not restricted to expensive cars. If you leave items exposed in the car you are making a mistake. I know people with modest cars who left things like small nondescript bags exposed and their windows were broken.
Tesla cannot stop thieves from breaking the windows. Your complaint is unreasonable, in my opinion.
I felt somewhat badly afterwards of having gone on about not being unaware possibly of the volume of car breakins in general in the Bay area to @KarimAllana. So hope if you are reading this, KarimAllana, you know that. Bad enough to have an hours-old brand new car broken into and to lose valuable info and electronics in addition, come to a forum and not get some level of sympathy at least from fellow owners. And I’m sure there’s some surprise in it happening in Palo Alto and not some sketchy parking lot somewhere or some bad area of town. I know where we got hit in San Jose was a decent area and it was still daylight and were surprised to have it happen to us.
I think my post was more in reaction to blaming Tesla for not producing a criminal-proof car. What we did tell Jon McNeil (when he was still with Tesla) and Franz when they were at an event we attended in 2017 was that with all of these breakins happening and so prevalent in this area, couldn’t they at least make the rear window area less expensive to repair. On the Model S it’s a one piece trim that needs to get replaced; and the labor and such, not the glass part per se, is the majority of the cost. This event we attended was right when the Model 3 was being seen on the road for the first time. In fact they both brought their red Model 3s with them for everyone to see in person. I have noticed that they did subsequently make a design change in the Model 3’s rear window frame. It now has a joint so the entire length of the frame doesn’t have to be replaced. Honestly not as nice of a look if you are close up and see it, but I took this as them listening to feedback and trying to make repairs less costly, especially for a car the masses would be buying.
We also discussed in group with them doing something to maybe strengthen the triangle glass there and/or making the back seats lockable. Of course if the perps want in your car if they can’t get in the little rear window, they’ll break one of the car’s larger more expensive windows. I suppose for the lockable rear seat option, if the perps know the seat can come down and people are lazy and don’t always lock them in place, well they’ll breaking anyway to find out. This stuff happens in literally less than a minute. It’s time they are willing to spend for a possible reward on their end. So the lock would add to the cost and not necessarily stop the window from being broken. Many manufacturers have similar rear seat fold-down design.
I find it annoying if the police didn’t mention all the other makes of cars that are also broken into maybe leading you to believe this is a Tesla problem. And not all are expensive luxury models either. In my mind the real contributor is the fact that these property crimes don’t get investigated, and when someone is caught it’s a slap on the wrist to them so there’s no deterent and it’s looked at as quick easy money with little risk. In part the increase in this crime is due to police being understaffed, the laws having been weakened, and there’s no budget or room in our jails.
Best advice, until people start being robbed in person, is to carry your briefcase and valuables with you at all times when you leave your car. Very sad to say. I do hope maybe your briefcase with your forensic work gets found and returned. Hopefully you had your phone and laptop encrypted and backed up. Would be great to hear if Find my Device software was able to give the police a location of them. Anyone doing this for awhile probably knows about this though and it’s more useful to the owner who left their device somewhere and can’t remember where.
I think my post was more in reaction to blaming Tesla for not producing a criminal-proof car. What we did tell Jon McNeil (when he was still with Tesla) and Franz when they were at an event we attended in 2017 was that with all of these breakins happening and so prevalent in this area, couldn’t they at least make the rear window area less expensive to repair. On the Model S it’s a one piece trim that needs to get replaced; and the labor and such, not the glass part per se, is the majority of the cost. This event we attended was right when the Model 3 was being seen on the road for the first time. In fact they both brought their red Model 3s with them for everyone to see in person. I have noticed that they did subsequently make a design change in the Model 3’s rear window frame. It now has a joint so the entire length of the frame doesn’t have to be replaced. Honestly not as nice of a look if you are close up and see it, but I took this as them listening to feedback and trying to make repairs less costly, especially for a car the masses would be buying.
We also discussed in group with them doing something to maybe strengthen the triangle glass there and/or making the back seats lockable. Of course if the perps want in your car if they can’t get in the little rear window, they’ll break one of the car’s larger more expensive windows. I suppose for the lockable rear seat option, if the perps know the seat can come down and people are lazy and don’t always lock them in place, well they’ll breaking anyway to find out. This stuff happens in literally less than a minute. It’s time they are willing to spend for a possible reward on their end. So the lock would add to the cost and not necessarily stop the window from being broken. Many manufacturers have similar rear seat fold-down design.
I find it annoying if the police didn’t mention all the other makes of cars that are also broken into maybe leading you to believe this is a Tesla problem. And not all are expensive luxury models either. In my mind the real contributor is the fact that these property crimes don’t get investigated, and when someone is caught it’s a slap on the wrist to them so there’s no deterent and it’s looked at as quick easy money with little risk. In part the increase in this crime is due to police being understaffed, the laws having been weakened, and there’s no budget or room in our jails.
Best advice, until people start being robbed in person, is to carry your briefcase and valuables with you at all times when you leave your car. Very sad to say. I do hope maybe your briefcase with your forensic work gets found and returned. Hopefully you had your phone and laptop encrypted and backed up. Would be great to hear if Find my Device software was able to give the police a location of them. Anyone doing this for awhile probably knows about this though and it’s more useful to the owner who left their device somewhere and can’t remember where.
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GoBlue88
Member
If you must keep your briefcase or whatever in the car, the frunk is probably the safest place. After this happened to me, I made it a habit to put my briefcase in the frunk instead of in the passenger footwell.
When I called my insurance agent (USAA) after the break-in disclosed above, she told me that 50% of the auto break-in claims she works on nationwide are in California. Seems to be an epidemic out here.
When I called my insurance agent (USAA) after the break-in disclosed above, she told me that 50% of the auto break-in claims she works on nationwide are in California. Seems to be an epidemic out here.
Sadly, it isn't really even considered much of a crime these days. Reward / risk ratio.
IceAge
Member
bkp_duke
Well-Known Member
Applies to 2014 and later cars. Before, you had to break into the car and pull the release under the glove box
GoBlue88
Member
Sure, but I doubt that will be employed by your average 20 second smash-and-grab thief.
Those of you that live there need to demand the government treat crime as crime.
IceAge
Member
I think you under estimate the knowledge thieves have. Internet videos explaining how to do it, high end vehicle which likely have high end contents, it takes 5 seconds, no breaking glass sound...
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