JOW240725 wrote:

Great news you've have it back!! How does no one hear them grinding off a brake pedal in broad daylight?

Hope you get it back on the road without too much trouble and insurance pays for the repairs and you can still enjoy it!

It is remarkably easy to do something like this if you are bull about it. Plus most people walk around with blinkers on completely unaware of their surroundings. I remember once locking my old 90s keys inside when I popped in to a super market. Came back out patted my pocket, looked at the steering column and said... Balls...! Went back into the supermarket, bought a hair slide and broke into the 90 in broad daylight with a full carpark and no one said a word.

Really really glad you got the 90 back, you did a grand job on it

trickster5000 wrote:

Hi, thanks for the post. Yeah it was stolen from a busy village in broad daylight, they used an angle grinder to get the pedal lock off by cutting through the brake pedal, smashed the ignition barrel and hotwired it.

I managed to follow to a village in a neighbouring county where it was left parked up and called the police. They've trashed the steering column shroud and all the lower dash as well as obviously the damage to the brake pedal. It's been taken to a police compound for forensics and then I'll have to spend some time repairing everything they smashed. All tools and belongings in the back nicked too.


Click image to enlarge

I'm incredibly lucky to have got it back, very swift and thorough response from Leicestershire police, fingers crossed the forensics turns up something useful

I bet that's been some one very local to you, who has had that away. Been sniffing at it to find out what security you have had sadly. Thank god you got that back, need their fingers taking off. Don't let what happened put you off my friend, also you best off switched that steering wheel to a remover able boss setup, and take the wheel with you. Some areas you just cannot leave these a lone for a min or so with out it been sniffed at sadly.

From my experience, when i lost the 300, the insurance was great, and were keen to pay out, and would have fixed the damages, but sadly mine was a bbq. Funny thing is where it was found, a housing estate is going on it. But they recon they dragged out 15 little 4x4s and burned out bmw.
What me and my dad did, was beef up the driveway security, and CCTV means all. They just cover up and strike sadly.

Keep your Chin up buddy, i have been there too and its not nice. Plus its a pain to fix or go back at jobs that you have already done. I had to start again, i lost £2000 plus loss on my old one. MOT and new tyres. Which was the cost. Such a shame for me, because i never got the chance to really role out what i wanted to do with her. But for me a much better Defender came my way, which had all the toys, and what i wanted to do with mine. But the very 1st thing i did was do the removeable boss job, that was before i bought the replacement. They got away with my 1st one, and sure hell they are not going to get away with this. It will be always on your mind sadly, i power off the engine and lock the doors, that's just me putting up our driveway security. Just in case someone wants to jump in. Defender TD5 90 ---/--- Peugeot 306 HDI hatch back

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