Vandals

Friday night someone decided to throw a jack through the window of my wifes car. There was nothing in the car to be taken. I think they were doing a smash and grab.

That really bites! Sorry you have to deal with this. I REALLY dislike like thieves.

I'd be all over that jack looking for fingerprints, or having the police detective do it. This may be an attempted grand theft auto, which is a felony is most places.

That sucks a lot!

Are you sure that you or your wife haven't irritated one of the local punks?

Just curious - I see that you have the so called alarm system with the door mounted LED. I assume that the car was locked. Did any horn sound as a result of the window breakage? Was the door opened? Sorry to see this happen.

No alarm went off. I believe the vandals did in fact open the door. After the police came and everything, me and the wife wanted to see if you could unlock the door from the inside. So the door was locked and I reached through the broken window and hit the unlock button and opened the door without alarm sounding. And the key fobs were inside the house. To me that's a bull**** alarm.

GEICO came and did the damage estimate. Interior damage came out to almost $6900

Fingerprints? GTA? Lol. Nobody cares about your car as much as you do, and the people who care the least are the police followed closely by someone else's insurance, and by a slim margin, your insurance.

The most you'll get is a police report to give to your insurance.

$6,900?? How did they figure that? From the picture it looks like a window and a good interior detail should get you fixed. I'm sure I'm missing something but that's an insane amount of damage.

Time to install some surveillance cameras on your house. A decent kit can be had online or at one of your big box bulk stores (Costco, BJs, etc.) for a few hundred bucks.

This is what ours was able to capture a while ago...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqHxTOtHMtQ

dzcad90 said:

$6,900?? How did they figure that? From the picture it looks like a window and a good interior detail should get you fixed. I'm sure I'm missing something but that's an insane amount of damage.

Click to expand...

That is a crazy amount of $$$! They must be replacing everything touched by broken glass for that amount of money. Or maybe I am missing something.

To the OP, that really stinks. Years ago I had a car keyed all the way up the side. I think it was simply a random act by some jerk teenager, but it was awful. I had to look at it for years because I didn't want to pay my deductible for a cosmetic issue on an older car. But that feeling of violation was there every time I saw it. Vandals suck even worse than thieves!

dzcad90 said:

Fingerprints? GTA? Lol. Nobody cares about your car as much as you do, and the people who care the least are the police followed closely by someone else's insurance, and by a slim margin, your insurance.

Click to expand...

I can understand with a nice quiet neighborhood like Joliet, but thankfully Joliet isn't the rest of the US.

VeeDubTDI said:

This is what ours was able to capture a while ago...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqHxTOtHMtQ

Click to expand...

***?!

2013SELTDI said:

No alarm went off. I believe the vandals did in fact open the door. After the police came and everything, me and the wife wanted to see if you could unlock the door from the inside. So the door was locked and I reached through the broken window and hit the unlock button and opened the door without alarm sounding. And the key fobs were inside the house. To me that's a bull**** alarm.
GEICO came and did the damage estimate. Interior damage came out to almost $6900

Click to expand...

Sorry about your lost. Assuming you have a SEL, your alarm can be turned on via Vag-Com. Here is the instruction: http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.php?5568128-Alarm&p=77426571&viewfull=1#post77426571
Please see post #62 by compu_85.
Here is a copy of what he said:
"This is going to rain on the parts department parade a bit... but I just found you can turn on the alarm with VCDS... with no hardware changes.

Byte 6, Bit 5. "Anti Theft-System installed / Active". Checking that bit seemed to turn on the alarm system we're all used to: opening a door from the inside while the alarm is armed starts the horn flashing and the blinkers blinking. It used the main horns, so it's nice and loud.
I don't be installing the meeper alarm horn now
-J"

It worked! The alarm will sound when people trying to open a locked car without the key fob.

Hope this helps!

2013SELTDI said:

No alarm went off. I believe the vandals did in fact open the door. After the police came and everything, me and the wife wanted to see if you could unlock the door from the inside. So the door was locked and I reached through the broken window and hit the unlock button and opened the door without alarm sounding. And the key fobs were inside the house. To me that's a bull**** alarm.

GEICO came and did the damage estimate. Interior damage came out to almost $6900

Click to expand...

Sorry for your loss. If you hit the unlock button from the inside, and open the door, the alarm will not sound.

dzcad90 said:

Fingerprints? GTA? Lol. Nobody cares about your car as much as you do, and the people who care the least are the police followed closely by someone else's insurance, and by a slim margin, your insurance.

The most you'll get is a police report to give to your insurance.

$6,900?? How did they figure that? From the picture it looks like a window and a good interior detail should get you fixed. I'm sure I'm missing something but that's an insane amount of damage.

Click to expand...

This!^

If the insurance company is offering you $6900, take. it. now! But keep in mind when you are making your next payment that if they offered you a ridiculous settlement amount, they are doing it for others...and your rates probably reflect their stupidity.

Abacus said:

I can understand with a nice quiet neighborhood like Joliet, but thankfully Joliet isn't the rest of the US.

Click to expand...

Nice edit. (You have the complete wrong area referenced, btw..)

I've also lived in small town America - I grew up in a town of 200 people. The police would do the same thing down there.

I'm not trying to be callus, but let's look at the facts and realities here:

• Someone threw a jack through a car window
• Owner says nothing was taken
• We have no information that there has been a rash of crimes like this in the OPs area
• Car was not moved, stolen, attempted to be hotwired, etc..

If you take all that into account, the only logical conclusion is that this is a one-off crime. This was either punks who thought it would be cool to toss a jack through the window "just to see what happens", or they have some "beef" with the OP (Whether the OP knows it or not..).

The other likely situation is that someone needed quick cash for drugs, debt, etc... and a nice brand new looking car on the driveway looked like a good opportunity to make a quick score off of the interior contents.

Either way, the cops are not brining out the detective squad, unless this is the beginning of a rash of crimes like this in an area. Being that a jack was thrown through the window, I doubt it this is the case as the perpetrators would be more likely to use something like a crowbar to break windows. A crowbar wouldn't leave evidence, is reusable, and is portable.

TV police dramas leave us thinking that there's going to be citywide manhunts, forensic investigations, and swift justice in cases like this. Unfortunately, the victims in this case are the law abiding citizens and our only recourse is to file a claim on comprehensive insurance and hope your insurance doesn't try and use too many aftermarket parts in the repair.

It sucks, but it's reality.

As for the rates going up - fortunately this falls under comprehensive - which does NOT raise rates when you make claims as a collision claim does. (With MOST non-scammy insurance companies at least..)

Sorry man. That sucks. I had a couple of my vehicles ransacked and stuff taken a few years ago.

2013SELTDI said:

No alarm went off. I believe the vandals did in fact open the door. After the police came and everything, me and the wife wanted to see if you could unlock the door from the inside. So the door was locked and I reached through the broken window and hit the unlock button and opened the door without alarm sounding. And the key fobs were inside the house. To me that's a bull**** alarm.

GEICO came and did the damage estimate. Interior damage came out to almost $6900

Click to expand...

Did you add an extra zero there? How did they come up with $6,900?

The jack lightly scuffed both upper front seat and there are cut marks on the seat bottoms from the glass.The glass cut a small spot on the headliner above the driver seat. There's a small cut on the dash on the driverside. Damage on the console by rear ac vents. Passenger seat belt adjuster is broken from the impact of the jack. And other small things.

Thanks for the support. I was really upset when i saw it. This is our first new car and for someone to come and do this to it made my heart drop to the ground. I thought it was a accident at first.

dzcad90 said:

As for the rates going up - fortunately this falls under comprehensive - which does NOT raise rates when you make claims as a collision claim does. (With MOST non-scammy insurance companies at least..)

Click to expand...

I'm not saying his rates will "go" up, I'm saying that if GEICO is paying out $6900 for a broken window and some glass clean up there rates are probably already too high!

Don (dzcad90),

And that's exactly the reason stuff like this keeps happening, because people know they will get away with it.

Up here it'd be investigated, no question. It's really a simple matter to investigate this, and the reasons for the jack being in the front seat are irrelevant.

The seat skins are about $2000 for the pair the dash $1200. Steering wheel $850.
Headliner $400 and about $1700 in labor.

Frustrated Prius owner?

2013SELTDI said:

The seat skins are about $2000 for the pair the dash $1200. Steering wheel $850.
Headliner $400 and about $1700 in labor.

Click to expand...

Something tells me a new Passat would cost about $125,000 to build out of parts over the counter.

Dude, that truly sucks. I would be raging mad, and even madder knowing there's nothing I could have done / can do about it.

2013SELTDI said:

The jack lightly scuffed both upper front seat and there are cut marks on the seat bottoms from the glass.The glass cut a small spot on the headliner above the driver seat. There's a small cut on the dash on the driverside. Damage on the console by rear ac vents. Passenger seat belt adjuster is broken from the impact of the jack. And other small things.

Thanks for the support. I was really upset when i saw it. This is our first new car and for someone to come and do this to it made my heart drop to the ground. I thought it was a accident at first.

Click to expand...

2013SELTDI said:

The seat skins are about $2000 for the pair the dash $1200. Steering wheel $850.
Headliner $400 and about $1700 in labor.

Click to expand...

That is a good bit of damage. I guess with your car being brand new, they've got more of an obligation to ensure that the job is done right. I can't get over those prices. Good luck. Hopefully they'll get your car squared away soon.

Fingerprints mean nothing unless the culprit has a record, which is very unlikely for vandalism of this kind.

Yes indeed, if you buy the parts for ANY car and assemble it yourself, it's probably several times the cost of the car.

Random acts of violence are virtually impossible to defend agaiinst. They are indeed...random...

Forget the fingerprints. There has to be DNA there somewhere.

You can only hope the perp gets his someday.

Where can I get discounted oem parts like seat covers and driver window ect. Thx

2013SELTDI said:

Where can I get discounted oem parts like seat covers and driver window ect. Thx

Click to expand...

A driver window may be available in the aftermarket, however interior parts are going to likely be available from VW only. The aftermarket generally only picks up on parts that are likely to fail or need replacement.

There are a number of places online that sell VW parts, and there's a few people who post in the forums who work for VW dealership parts depots. I've found if you develop a rapport with your local parts guy, getting 20% off of list price isn't hard to do.

1stVWParts.com
RiversideVW

VeeDubTDI said:

Time to install some surveillance cameras on your house. A decent kit can be had online or at one of your big box bulk stores (Costco, BJs, etc.) for a few hundred bucks.

This is what ours was able to capture a while ago...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqHxTOtHMtQ

Click to expand...

LOL!! While the smash job was impressive, I thoroughly enjoyed the sequel to it with the Red Neck Bodyshop! Good as new after a few bumper pulls and trunk lid stomps. Better watch out that the local constabulary doesn't get you for a broken tail light.

i'd take the money and run! fix the window/seatbelt myself and just clean the rest as best i could