A bloke from the E-series forum (FairmontEL) recently had his EL falcon sedan stolen. Here is a pic of the car which was located a few days later, it was found to have a busted door lock and forced ignition barrel.

Questions:

1) how can you force the ignition barrel on a EL and start the car. I was under the assumption that smartlock kills the engine until seeing the code when the key is turned.

2) Could the smartlock in the car have not been working properly, It sounds like the thief just used a screw driver etc and forced the barrel to start the car. Like they use to do on the EA falcons and VN commodores.

3) Might need to buy an aftermarket alarm or kill switch, i was under the impression that smartlock fords were really hard to steal from novices (If it was an expert none of the locks would have looked damaged)

i am starting to get worried about parking it in some places I know are dodgy area's............

 

 

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Last edited by falcon4litreOHC on Thu Dec 08, 2005 7:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

As far as i know, smartlock only stops people from hotwiring the car, if you can force the barrell to turn it wont do jack s**t.

ahhh the white stuff is for the fingerprinting - wondered why it was there...

if they have got time they can wait an hr with a new lock barrel, and after the hour the smartlock learns the code for the new barrel overwriting the old one, but this takes time, so its painful if ur tryin to steal one, but yea...thats a C***.

Thats right if you can get the barrel to turn the correct codes are sent to the BCM and she starts.
What we need is a key with the codes in then it would not matter if they broke the lock.
What we also need is a sensor that detects the barrel being forced and a small charge under the drivers seat ( 12 gauge cartridge) only trouble a bit of a bugger if it goes faulty when you are starting the car.

The AU II onwards use a key with a chip in them, and the car will not start unless the bem recognises the key. But that doesn't really help those of us with pre AU II cars.

So basically a EB series II to AU series I cars fitted with smartlock can be started by forcing the ignition barrel?

That is crap, what does smartlock do, just stop people trying to start your car with their house keys or something. I see the use for remote door entry, but jeez............

If this is correct i am going down to an auto store and outlay $10 and put a 20A kill switch on my fuel pump, stuff paying $300 for an alarm.

Fuel pumps are good because the wiring goes from dash to pump, so you can cut it at any point and hide the switch.

ignition barrels can be quite hard to force, its usually much easier to hotwire the car, or on non efi cars to rip the barrel out and directly operate the starter.

smartlock more or less means that the theif HAS to force the barrel,

yes but running one wire from park lamps to fuel pump terminal and turning on park lamps gives u a working fuel pump again

smartlock will start so long as the internals of the barrel arent damaged and will turn...
smartshield (Late AU1 onwards) as has been said
uses a transponder type key, and keys must be programmed by a dealer before the car will start...

So a screw driver and a pair of multigrips in other words will start my car.

Besides the fuel pump what else can i install a kill switch on. I am thinking starter motor relay, ignition or ecu relay...???

any of those will be good.

When insuring my el xr8 my insurance company (shannons) told me the smart lock is one of the better systems, and that stealing the car is too much trouble for most thieves, and they give discounts accordingly!!!

They said not to bother with alarms and stuff so i followed the advice and left the car as is.

My xb on the other hand has battery, ignition and fuel pump kill switch plus complex alarm system, and one angry owner if you go within 6 foot of the car!!!!!

The biggest enemy in these types of things is your own complacency.
Nearly 20 years ago when I had my Commodore stolen I wouldn't have known all it took was a screwdriver and 3 split pins to drive it off, but there you go. Someone termed it spot on in that EL theft thread - "A wake up call".
I clearly remember standing on the vacant spot where it was parked - I can't understand why I did that . . . . .
I guarantee you will never view security with complacency ever again.

Although E series falcon's are a bit harder, leaving a car with standard security leaves your thief with a known quantity.
Smartlock was a good system for many years, but like everything, eventually it was be able to be beaten - I've read a few articles acknowledging this.
The good news is that there is plenty you can do to improve security - I'm still a big believer in alarms, a bit of noise for starters, and there is plenty more points where you can disable the car, not just the fuel pump.
This way you'll give your prospective thief some doubts.

I was at my regular wreckers today, and a dismantler showed me how to get into an EF/EL front door in about a minute, without damaging anything.
They quite often have to get into wrecked cars without power or keys.

So I think it would be handy for some of the FTG guys to share some of their tips as well, we do have a locksmith on the forums as well.

Again there's plenty you can do to make entry more difficult as well - pull your door trims and look for yourself.
I think the time you devote to improving and planning you car's security is well spent, and keep your mods to yourself, don't tell everyone what you've done - who know's who reads these threads.

Of course you can never make your car totally bulletproof, but that extra time and difficulty needed to get into your car for your thief may be the difference between coming back to a car or standing in the vacant spot like I did . . . .

can some one tell me a good way to make my car more secure, as i have seen how the racv guys got into my car in about 20 sec's,without even a scratch. I would like to make it alot harder from that point on, as it is very hard to strengthen the top of the front doors,lol.

a friend of mine has a VN with a viper alarm, they seem to be good and upgradeable, was thinking of getting one. what sort of options do you guys find work realy well on ef falcons.

the biggest things you can do is

a) tracker alarm
b) car alarm in general
c) car alarm with a pager.

everythings a deterant in the end, if they REALLY want your car unfortunately the f**k will get it. it depends on how prof they are in the end and what they're after.

suggest for saving money, i suggest a decent car alarm (viper, mongoose, rhino etc)

It is very VERY easy to steal a smartlock falcon, There are ways around it, Im not going to into detail on how to do it, But, I've had to start quite a lot of smartlock cars Ive had here without keys (wrecks that I've had that needed to see if they start/motor is good etc)

But, It can be done in less then 5mins, If that!

Smartlock IS good, But its got some weak points.