Last week in Berlin, some burglars broke into my 1.5 month old X5 M Sport and stole the steering wheel & airbag. Funny enough, the very same view was waiting for me on the following morning, as they broke also into my rental 1-series M Sport(!). 2 days, 2 break-ins, 2 lost steering wheels. Didn't really know whether to laugh or cry.
I've also heard from many people, that especially BMWs are under attack at this moment in Germany. There has even been a case, where the burglars went into a dealership to steal steering wheels and navigation systems.
I would like to share my observations, in case if someone knows how the burglars break into the cars and how we could prevent these from happening:
- In both cases, everything started from the rear driver-side, by breaking the small rear door window.
- That driver-side rear door was then used to enter the car, to jump into the driver's seat, and to remove the steering wheel and airbag.
- No alarm was triggered. So I would assume they have the needed devices to bypass/deactivate the BMW's default alarm system and/or cut the power. Clearly, BMW's default security is quite useless, even on the high-end model such as X5.
- (attached few pics of my X5 and rental 1-series)
When asked for more information, BMW is close to clueless with this problem, that is a massive one especially the closer we get to the Eastern Europe countries.
To prevent this happening in the future, some recommended actions so far include:
1) Visible steering wheel lock, to send a visible message for any burglars, that break-in is a waste of time. One apparently good device to do the job is
Disklok, as it prevents the access to the airbag, or makes it much more difficult.
2) In case if someone still decides to enter the car, a better 3rd party alarm system should be installed, including window break detectors, backup power supply, and call/SMS in case of triggered.
Any ideas how they do it, and what should we do to prevent it from happening?