Car pedal anti-theft safety box - photo

[Frank S]

In my personal opinion if you have to life where your vehicle is under constant threat of being stolen then you should drive a UGO. After all when was the first or the last time anyone ever heard of a UGO being stolen?
Years ago the fools at ford came up with one of the most Ludacris forms of anti theft devices I have ever heard of, then built their cars so the A pillar allowed rain or car wash spray to get inside of the vehicles and soak the ECM shorting it out or causing it to scramble the random coding the pads goes through every time the key is inserted in the switch which creates a false code then if the engine even starts it might die before the ECM completes the reset of the pads when that happens the vehicle has to be towed to a dealer so he can replace half of the electronics under the dash which entails a 3 hour disassembly $$$$ in parts then flashing the electronics with a computer and reprograming everything. IF and that is a very BIG IF the technician gets lucky he will be able to do this on the first time and you may get your vehicle back in 2 or 3 days. And if he is a very knowledgeable repair tech he will remove the windshield and reseal the A pillar otherwise it is going to happen again.
The problem is if the vehicle happens to be a few years old as in over 10 then the dealership may not have a tech who knows how to work on them in the first place and they will no longer have the correct reprograming software anyway.