Rx350KL

Can you beleive this ~
I was parked adjacent the court house in Newark. When someone decided to remove the lights from my SUV. I'm told by eye-wintesses, that all of 40 seconds were involved to pull the bumper off, snap the bracket to the lights, cut the wires and flee in two cars from the scene of the theft. YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME! 40 seconds to steal lights with an attachted bumper, brackets, wires and a harnest from across the court house. Where police officials are clearly around. I called my dealer "Lexus of Manhattan" to ask why the bumper\brackets and lights pop off so easily, and all I received was the Ralph Kramden... Hmm-min-a-hmmmmmm, so I hung up the phone before I lost my cool.

After the police arrived... which was pretty fast, seeing how they were already at the scene. Pictures were taken , and I was questioned about what happen. I really didn't want to talk... breaking something would have been pleasurable at that point and time. I was extremely angry.

30 minutes into the issue, another officer drove up in his car with the lights fully in tact, with all the bulbs and functionality. Everything was there, so now I'm really mad. I asked the officers why in the world would some one rip apart the SUV and take lights, knowing they counldn't use.

Do any of you know?

Anyway the purpose of my ranting is to ask about installing an alarm for the bumper\lights, along with adding the crash grille guard to the vehicle for protection.

Does anyone know if the grille guard will prevent the lights from being stolen?

Also, I have pictures if any are interested. For some reason I can not add them to the thread, perhaps one of you can assist me.

Your thoughts are very much appreciated

JasDmw

This is a good story for most amazing videos, if you could get the tape. Maybe there is a security camera somewhere on the courthouse, as it is just across the street!

Only respnse I can offer is that there must be a market for those parts. Just last week an undercover office was killed in Toronto for trying to take down a couple of punks stealing air bags from a Honda. They started the car and backed into a tree with the officer pinned to the trunk. He didn't survive. And these 2 punks were out on bail for, get this, stealing air bags!

My dealer offered me the booomerang tracking system at purchase. I declined for 2 reasons; it would save a total of $5.00 annually on my insurance and if someone steals my RX, I don't want it back! For your situation, putting the car back together should be easy. Sounds like the sheet metal didn't get bent. the rest is brackets and wiring; simple enought to put back together properly.

Rx350KL

Actually, the vehicle was damaged badly. Both left and right fenders need to be replaced, the lights although in tact had scratches and smashed plastic on them. The bumper was completely destroyed... bent out of recognition. and rewiring is obviously costly as repair is already around 8,000 dollars.

RXSF

actually this is very common on the east coast.

there was something about this a year ago back where if you lived on the east coast, lexus dealers were required to put data dots on your headlights which would enable them to track down where your headlights are, or something in that area.

Data Dots are the Lexus response to HID theft on the rx 330 and 400h. It is a kit installed by the dealer that makes it impossible to remove the HID's without making them unsaleable, and it marks them with a permanent id so if they are recovered they can be traced back to your vehicle. seeing as how you have a 2007, you probably have the data dots installed and that is how they got them back?

they steal them for the bi xenon bulbs, which apparently are worth some money in the market.

Rx350KL

What are data dots?
Do they have some kind of beacon that sends their location.
I have the stolen lights and do not see any kind of object
that looks close to that.

RXSF

mm no beacon device. as i stated, its just a kit them was suppose to have been installed where people cant steal them anymore. I dont know if yours were installed with them, but they should have been. take them to your dealer and ask why/how they were stolen and if data dots were installed.

i dont know what they actually look like because i dont have them installed seeing as how i dont live on the east coast.

Rx350KL

I tried to reconnect the lights.

The G Man

RX350KL, sorry to hear about your RX. I could never understand people like that, they do $8000 dollars of damage to get to a HID light which is prabably worth $200 in the black market.

chrispy

iTrader: (21)

RX projectors are not even worth $100 a pair on HIDplanet or ebay. It's a shame these morons destroyed a brand new car to try to make a quick buck.

mandyfig

Man, sorry to hear about this! It hurts to see an RX in that state. SOB's! get that RX nipped up and forget the incident and move on. Still, what is the best defense on crap like this?

Rx350KL

Thanks to all for the support!

Exactly what I want to know is, what is the best defense from
preventing this from happening again?

LiCelsior

iTrader: (32)

i remember this was a common problem in maximas and they had the recall the cars to fix the headlight housings. sorry about ur car, newark is in some deep crime right now and in addition with the murder of those 3 kids. and if a thief wants something in ur car, they will take it no matter what so there is no way to prevent it, unless u park it in a enclosed area.

LexusChris

iTrader: (1)

Man, it's very sad to hear something like this, I know in the NYC area it's fairly common sadly.

CK6Speed

iTrader: (1)

IMHO, your best defense is good insurance. Here is the problem. The thief is not after the entire headlight itself, thus the reason why they don't care if they break the mounting tabs and cut the wire. They are not selling the headlights or using them as replacements. What they want is the projector itself. As someone mentioned, it goes for about $100 a set, but that is actually coming down in price as before it would fetch a little more money than that.

Anyway, the data dots and reinforcement plates that Lexus uses does not address this problem. The idea as someone mentioned is to allow tracking of a stolen part. If the part is believed to be stolen, they can check for the data dots and determine if that part (The headlights) are from the car in question or are from a car that had headlights reported stolen. The problem is these data dots are NOT on the projector. So, basically after the thief steals your headlights they discard the portion that has the data dots on anyway so it is useless.

As to the extra mounting bracket that makes it harder to steal, it does just that. It makes the lights harder to remove, and maybe even impossible. The reason why I DO NOT suggest you install it is because it is NOT visible to a thief. They wont know until that try to take your headlights that it is more secure. The problem is the damage to the car and the headlights are just as bad and often worse because the thieft tries harder to pry out the headlights causing more damage. At this point, since the same plastic mounting tabs are generally broken, it really doesn't matter if the lights are still there or not as it will need replacing and body work done as well. My opinion is you might as well limit the damage to the car itself to make it easier and cheaper to repair.

PS. One question. Is your headlights the HID version or the regular halogen headlights? The reason being is the halogen headlights have no value since it is the HID projector the thief wants.

ricdiablo

WHAT THE F&%K!