What do you do if your car is stolen? This isn’t something you should think about only after it has actually happened. Indeed, there are many ways that you can prepare yourself for a car theft, minimizing its impact on your life and maximizing the chance of getting your vehicle back. Take the advice from our Seattle auto body shop to thwart the car thieves of the world:
- Keep your car’s registration card on your person, and not your glove compartment.
- Write your car’s vehicle identification number under the hood of your car, inside your trunk lid, and on the battery. If you don’t know your VIN, you can find it on the dashboard on the driver’s side.
- Avoid leaving important personal property in your car. If you need to, leave it in the trunk or another place where it is not visible to people outside the car. Even if the car itself is not the target of your thief, it is surprisingly easy to break a window and grab hot theft items like cell phones.
- Keep a record of the year, make, model, and color of your car. You will want to be able to give this information to the police after your car is stolen.
- Park your car in a locked garage. When a garage isn’t available, use security devices, like a steering-wheel lock or a gearshift column lock.