STOLEN: 1985 Vanagon Westfalia (San Francisco) ~ FOUND

[thebigben]

Will add more details soon. The van was stolen around Sunday and Monday night from a private lot off Oak St in San Francisco.

Notable features are:

GW steel bumpers, rims, Fiamma bike rack, and awning. The grill has a crack in it that I zip tied for the time being. It’s not the original gold color, was repainted by POs.

Also has a 11” roof fan vent in place of the stock skylight.

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Ben

'85 2WD Westy w/ Peloquin TBD + 2.2 Subi (Kurt Vannegut)

[dobryan]

Damn! I hope you get it back soon and well.

Please let us know what happens.

Fingers crossed.

(Have you contacted Abel at the Vanalert app to post there as well?)
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Dave O
'87 Westy w/ 2002 Subaru EJ25 and Peloquin TBD

"To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive." Robert Louis Stevenson

MD>Canada>AK>WA>OR>CA>AZ>UT>WY>SD
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=620646

Building a bus for travel in Europe (euroBus)
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=695371

The Western Syncro build
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=746794

[thebigben]

Thank you. Yes I did post there as well. and I loved the app, found a lot of great parking spots with it.

I had a GPS tracker as well, but the battery just died on it. My luck!
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Ben

'85 2WD Westy w/ Peloquin TBD + 2.2 Subi (Kurt Vannegut)

[csebern]

Check Bayshore/Hunter’s Point. That’s where they found the 4 that were stolen in SF.
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Get a Volkswagen they said. It'll be fun they said.

[thebigben]

Found by some woman 2.5hrs ago in Bernal heights with the door wide open.

She called the police but they still haven’t arrived. I only found out from someone who found my registration, looked me up on LinkedIn, and then asked a friend who works at the same company as me for my number.

On my way now to check it out.
_________________
Ben

'85 2WD Westy w/ Peloquin TBD + 2.2 Subi (Kurt Vannegut)

[cmayna]

Congrats on getting it back, assuming you did. Kill switch time?
_________________
'90 Westy / automatic.
If I'm not working on the camper or my '50 Chebbie truck, I'm either fishing with the wife or smoking Salmon.


Craig

[dobryan]

Awesome.

Please tell us how they stole it. That detail seems to not be told often.
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Dave O
'87 Westy w/ 2002 Subaru EJ25 and Peloquin TBD

"To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive." Robert Louis Stevenson

MD>Canada>AK>WA>OR>CA>AZ>UT>WY>SD
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=620646

Building a bus for travel in Europe (euroBus)
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=695371

The Western Syncro build
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=746794

[SSWesty]

[Steve M.]

So glad you're getting it back!
Hope it is not in too bad a shape.
_________________
This free advice is worth exactly what you paid for it.

There are seven days in a week. Someday is not one of them.

[jimf909]

[thebigben]

Hey all,

Thanks for the kind words. So glad to have my van back.

I have no idea how the van was stolen. All the doors were locked — although it does feel like the lock on the passenger side door is a little messed up now.

Ignition still works, car started right up. I didn’t see any obvious signs of tampering, but I will take a deeper look tomorrow to see if any of the wiring was messed with. Otherwise, I’m at a loss for how it happened.

The interior was pretty thoroughly trashed, but just in the process of scouring it for stuff. They didn’t seem to realize the seat lifted up, luckily, and left me all of my expensive charging equipment and batteries. All of it will clean up just fine.

I had a lot of camping, hiking, and scuba stuff stolen from the car. Stuff I’ve had for a really really long time.

Yes yes — kill switch, permanent GPS tracker, steering wheel lock, etc.
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Ben

'85 2WD Westy w/ Peloquin TBD + 2.2 Subi (Kurt Vannegut)

[the joker]

By yes yes etc., it's time or they foiled them, installing soon

Lately not enough info about the mechanics of crime

[jimf909]

Goodness, just what were they looking for if they didn't take the Cholula hot sauce or the lifetime supply of zip-ties?

Thieves nowadays seem so misguided.
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- Jim

[cmayna]

You do/did have a kill switch? If so, was it active when the vehicle was stolen?
_________________
'90 Westy / automatic.
If I'm not working on the camper or my '50 Chebbie truck, I'm either fishing with the wife or smoking Salmon.


Craig

[thebigben]

Sorry for the confusion: no kill switch, but one is coming!

I had a GPS tracker, but it was dead.
_________________
Ben

'85 2WD Westy w/ Peloquin TBD + 2.2 Subi (Kurt Vannegut)

[thebigben]

How the heck did they steal it though? Doors were locked + no signs of forced entry. and no signs they tampered with the ignition or hot wired it.

There was no spare key hidden on/in the van.

Guesses?
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Ben

'85 2WD Westy w/ Peloquin TBD + 2.2 Subi (Kurt Vannegut)

[danfromsyr]

a worn out key might be able to 'bump' the tumblers in an old lock.

do you use your key alot/all the time? possible your lock wafers are more 'forgiving' than you'd prefer.

do you have/use the same key for the doors as the ignition?
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[erste]

https://unitedlocksmith.net/blog/why-bump-keys-dont-work-on-cars

Glad it was recovered!

My ‘82 300cd was stolen on halloween eve (saturday night), recovered monday morning. No forced entry and the link above explains how jiggle keys work. That’s what I suspect. The ignition cylinder is harder to turn now but it was a few days before I noticed. The (recut) key seems loose and takes some jiggling to work now. Passenger door lock seems trickier too.

This was also in SF. Lock that shit down.

My car went to the east bay and was found back in SF (Octavia & Page) and the trunk was full of backpacks and stuff, so it was used to smash and grab basically.

[leecat]

I was at Disneyland years ago and locked my keys in my Westy at the hotel. While we struggled to try to open it with a coat-hanger, the hotel security guy came by and said, "Hey - I have that same van, try my key".

Took it off his key-ring and opened my doors with it - worked smoother, in fact, than my own keys. Couldn't believe it. Since then with a whack of vans I've had, I've found about 30% of the time I can use one key in another van. Right now my '81 key opens the rear hatch on my '85, but not vice-versa.

Even if it doesn't seem to work at first, sometimes wiggling and fooling around will finally make one of the cylinders open. As Dan says above, the wafers are probably worn in all our vans. Plus there must not be that many possible combinations in early van keys to start with.

Not saying random car thieves in Oregon are that organized, but I think if you had a pocket full of old VW keys you'd have pretty good luck having one of them work.