All Vauxhalls are Shit - Spontaneous Parts Evaporation

[UltraWomble]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-33348506

 

 

Clearly a band of nomadic Corsa C, Zafira B and Vectra B owners who prowl the land looking for parts to keep their cars alive a little longer....

[Station]

"I just wasn't expecting it," says Frankland, 43, a midwife. "I didn't expect to go out and find the front of the car missing."

[Rusty_Rocket]

I'm surprised this hasn't happened sooner. Bumpers/ headlights/ bonnets are all in demand and very expensive. They are also easy to remove once you've got the way of it and you can pick a car in the right colour !

See also Land Rover doors and Discovery 2 head lamps.

[UltraWomble]

I actually think this is an inherent design flaw in a particular batch of Vauxhalls using cheap plastic from Russia ( see Ford steel of the 1980's) where parts just spontaneously "cease to be". Clearly also something to do with the ambient temperature - I feel with the recent hot weather these Vauxhall atoms (Vatoms) are becoming over excited, when they cool they enter a state of quantum instability whereby they change state to a gaseous compound and simply drift off into the night air...

 

Some would say a design flaw, some would say a deliberate marketing ploy to ensue the continued sale of aftermarket spares and keep the Luton plant going.

[Taff]

been happening in parts of Europe for years. Quite common in Moscow to have your wipers, mirrors and battery stolen over night.

[UltraWomble]

been happening in parts of Europe for years. Quite common in Moscow to have your wipers, mirrors and battery stolen over night.

Thats in a different league to waking up and finding this left on your driveway:

[danthecapriman]

I've seen a Merc Sprinter like this. On the Friday when I drove past it on my way home it was parked outside a garage. On the Monday morning someone had been in and taken the entire front end away, including a fair bit of the engine! The van hadn't moved from where it was parked and all the pipes and wires had just been cut or ripped out to get what they wanted off as quick as possible! It's amazing people have the balls to do it and they don't get caught.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

A couple of years ago I had two wheels off an E46 330Ci knicked,when the Old Bill forensics woman came round, she said an M3 in the next street had lost is bonnet and the night before a pair of seats out of another M3 had gone.

Some bastard was building a car from my village.

[sierraman]

I've took interiors out of cars before and it's laborious sweaty work. Can't imagine its easy to do this at 2am, silently?

[oldcars]

I think i am safe* with the Shuma. Took about 4 hours just to take of the front numberplate holder........

[Bren]

Supply and demand - expensive parts + car not worth much = opportunity for theiving bastards.

 

Same with everything. Remember the home improvement "boom" under new labour? Waney lap fence panels were hard to get hold of due to demand - people were having theirs lifted out in the dead of night.

 

Fence panels for fucks sake.

[alf892]

We had a few done...........Transit 350 pick up stripped of panels and interior over night.

 

Had an Astra van in at a dealers where the front end was taken. Had to claim on our own insurance as the dealer had taken 'reasonable care' by locking the gate. These types of repair very expensive as they often cut bits of loom out and canbus does not like scothlocks.

 

Some sections of the community are pretty nifty at removing Hiabs. We used to have trackers in the vehicles which was pretty useless in this instance we started fitting them in the crane.......

 

Spare wheels on Trannies definitely evaporate.

 

Expensive parts.............easily removed

[Joey spud]

Over the years I have attended many a transit non start only to look and the starter motor has been lifted.

Same with call outs for exhaust blowing only to find no cats or now days dpf filters.

Best one was a hilux in a pub car park that had clutch failure that was in fact missing its prop shafts.

[panhard65]

Many years ago we had a few good ones. The mk3 Escort in the hospital car park, the lady called us out because the "gearbox had gone". Got there and sure enough it had been nicked over night. The other classic was a Capri 3ltr having its engine nicked whilst impounded in the yard behind the police station. They used an old Land Rover with a harvey frost crane to pinch it.

[Joey spud]

In the mid eighties i was a trainee at a vx dealer where some one stole a gearbox,clutch and flywheel from a new unregistered Manta that was sitting in the compound.

 

A few days later a lad i got a lift to work with had converted his automatic T reg Carlton to a five speed manual....

[sierraman]

I take my hat off to people that can remove a gearbox in the dead of night unseen. I'd be at it days. They'd be arriving for work as I was struggling to take the bell housing bolts off...

[John F]

I take my hat off to people that can remove a gearbox in the dead of night unseen. I'd be at it days. They'd be arriving for work as I was struggling to take the bell housing bolts off...

 

I'd take their fucking heads off, the thieving shits.

[Lacquer Peel]

All the more reason to own undesirable, unpopular cars.

[martc]

Whilst driving into Nooo York one morning, there was a broken down yellow car (that's the best description I can supply) on the side of the freeway. On my way home I passed the shell of a broken down yellow car at the side of the freeway.

 

They had had it away with the wheels, the interior, doors, boot and bonnet lids and probably lots of other bits. This was in the early 1990's when Nooo York was a tad rough.

[sierraman]

I doubt they would pinch the front of my car, every panel has a dent, scratch or some sort of battle scar on it. I like them like that though I'm not one for polishing cars just so long as mechanically they are good.

[junkyarddog]

I'd better be careful where I park my FE

[oldcars]

Whilst driving into Nooo York one morning, there was a broken down yellow car (that's the best description I can supply) on the side of the freeway. On my way home I passed the shell of a broken down yellow car at the side of the freeway.

 

They had had it away with the wheels, the interior, doors, boot and bonnet lids and probably lots of other bits. This was in the early 1990's when Nooo York was a tad rough.

There has been a Rover 75 on the Fife side of the bridge now (Forth not weigh) for two weeks now, still there. What does that say about them 

[PiperCub]

Haven't heard this for ages, the first time was back in the mid 80's (1984?) when a mate of mines brother had his car stolen - guess what? It was a Vauxhall!!! An old Cresta IIRC as Rob was into the whole rockabilly-type scene.

 

It went missing one night, a couple of days later the cops called and told him they'd found it in the next town parked up and he can go get it (they weren't interested in any SOC stuff in those days). What he got was his car still pretty immaculate from the A-pillars backwards but the front end totally AWOL, no wings, bonnet, slam panel, grille, lights, bumper plus one wheel had been swapped for a (Ford?) different one but the hubcap was inside the car! All the 'work' was done very neatly, no hacking or other collateral damage.

The thing was, while it was obviously specifically targeted & done to repair an front-ended car, Crestas were not at all common at this time (most had rusted to death by the early 70's)  and so you'd have thought it'd have been easy to find the culprit with such limited numbers but despite quite extensive snooping about by Rob (the owner), he never discovered who did it.

 

What is it with Vauxhalls?

Was it the philosopher Plato or DesCartes who famously hypothisied -  'All Vauxhalls are shite'?

[martc]

There has been a Rover 75 on the Fife side of the bridge now (Forth not weigh) for two weeks now, still there. What does that say about them 

 

If it was a Volvo they'd be over it like a pack of hyenas.

[crapcarcollector]

One of the contractors at my work had a brand new Vauxhall van thing (same as the Renault traffic thing) any way he came the other day in a loaner. I asked where his new van was, and apparently it was nicked off a commercial building site by some low life with a hiviz going into the portakabin and telling the occupants 'eh mate yer van's blocking mine, chuck me the keys and I'll move it'

 

5th one from that site that month.

 

Brass neck

[twosmoke300]

A theatre company customer of mine had the entire exhaust nicked off his sprinter . Dpf and cat etc . He was laughing til I told him the price . Over a grand all in ! For pattern parts . It says something when you can buy a kit with all the parts that get nicked/ damaged

[Matt]

They used an old Land Rover with a harvey frost crane to pinch it.

 

Found it... 

 

[twosmoke300]

D701swl?

[cort16]

Surely this is a hate crime ?

All vauxhalls R shit

[OwdChina]

When I lived in Massachusetts and worked in Rhode Island I often used to drive down the Route 1 through Attleboro to work. There, there is a big Toyota dealer (Ernie Boch) with a huge showroom, dealer service etc all surrounded with a steel security fence and a pair of enormous gates to enter and exit. Nicely parked in lines on the huge forecourt were a couple of hundred full size brand new pick-up trucks (think big yank V8 truck), and on this particular morning there was a lot of police there too. Turns out that every single truck had had its cat stolen in the night..................they only noticed because of all the bolts on the ground everywhere.