The proper term is post-stolen, like my salvaged VW bug. The guy who sold it to me bought it back from the insurance company and restored it beautifully, only to let me ruin it once again.
Congrats ExTank, I’m hoping that it is excellent condition by your standards.
I was told it was located somewhere on Prairie Ave, around I-70 and Grand.
Hey, they found mine yesterday, too! I got notified today.
Yay for found cars! Mine is in what sounds like fixable condition, no words yet on the interior or my posessions.
I’m glad they found it, ExTank! A friend of mine had hers stolen from in front of her son’s house; she’d had to move in with him while her place was being repaired after Northridge, and she had packed her last load into the car and then gone in to say goodbye when it was stolen.
They stripped the interior, but left almost all her stuff in the car – even her good jewelry wasn’t bothered! – but did take a few documents, like her expired passport. The documents stolen never caused her any problems, fortunately.
Some douchebag stole a truck and took a stop in my parent’s neighbourhood last winter to “clean out” the cab. By the time I dug it all out it had been covered in snow for at least a week, but from receipts and such I managed to phone the owner up and return a bunch of stuff including his passport, floormats, and a borrowed mandolin.
I was reminded of this thread just the other day when a “recovered” meth user was talking on the radio about a fabulous recovery program that helped her get a job and such instead of ending up in jail for car theft. Which sounded alright in theory, but if someone ever steals my car, I want them submerged in a septic tank for a few months.
(Fingers crossed ExTank… I’d like to know what “remarkable condition” means too. There’s a guy down the block with a busted up car out back that looks like it got rolled that I might agree is “in remarkable condition” 
)
I had my 1985 red Toyota MR2 stolen from my driveway about 15 years ago. I went out to go to work, had the key poised in my hand … it was one of those things where I didn’t believe it wasn’t there so I did a double take to make sure. I then went out to the curb to see if somehow I’d mysteriously gotten out of bed to move it during the night. Nope, wasn’t at the curb either.
I called the CHP and filed a verbal report. The paperwork report was filed about 2-3 days later by a CHP unpaid volunteer - seems that car theft is so common that the CHP officers don’t have the time to take reports.
Several days later I got a call from a CHP officer who said that the car was found in a ditch in Rio Vista, which is a really crappy Delta town where I suppose after being stripped, stolen cars are abandoned. Evidently the MR2 seats were the goal.
I asked the officer if the car could be salvaged and he replied, “You don’t even want to see it.” I filed an insurance report and got enough money to buy a 1985 Honda Civic for cash. Not quite the same.
About a year later I was driving west on I-80 toward San Francisco when I saw my car in the left lane! It looked terrific and had a spoiler added. It had the same license number: IMTD080.
A few years before, I was stopped by a cop for no reason other than for the ‘message my license plate showed.’ He thought it read “I might do 80.” I assured him that’s not what it said at all, and since I was going 35 MPH when he stopped me, what was his problem?
I tried to follow the car but it was too difficult given traffic, speed and lack of an exit or wide shoulder where we could pull over. I wondered if the owner was sold the car ‘as-is’ and was advised that it had been stolen, stripped and abandoned.
I really loved that great little car! It looked something like this, but with a black bra.
Okay, I have the car back, and here’s the rundown:
Two of my tires were taken, but replaced (with newer tires, no less!). My spare and jack are gone. My plates are gone too; fat load of good they’ll do anyone, though, as they were due this month. For some odd reason, they took the owner’s manual, but left all registration/insurance info. The engine seems to run okay, but a few of my instrument lights (like my ABS warning, and Trac warning) stay on constantly; that may have something to do with my front end.
Downside: there’s some minor body damage (scrapes, mostly), and my front end is kinda screwed up. I won’t know for certain what’s wrong with the front end until the local garage gets done inspecting it, but my driver’s side front tire is obviously sticking out at a screwy angle, and when you use the brakes, you can definitely feel something wrong.
So I had it towed from downtown out to where I live in the county, and have my trusty local mechanic looking at it.
Bonus goodness: the thieving bastards left one of their CDs in my player. How I wish the cops can pull a good print off of the nice, flat, shiny piece of evidence!
ETA: myskeptic: it was located at 2036 Prairie St., in the city.
Ahh! They left a CD. Pray for a print.
Not as good as the thieves who left behind their cell phone with pictures of themselves in the stolen car in the camera area…but almost as nice.
If you’ve been in possession of the cd since the vehicle was returned to you it will be worthless as evidence I expect. Could be a stolen CD with no prints from the actual thieves, could be the CD of a long-hated brother in law you’ve been dying to frame, etc. Shadow of a doubt and all that.
Glad you have your car back, by the way.
Q: If those pretentious turds at BMW can call their crap-mobiles ‘Pre-Owned’ (meaning owned prior), why can’t Ex-Tank call his vehicle ‘Pre-Stolen’ (for stolen prior) ?
‘Post Stolen’ is what happens when you hit ‘Submit Reply’ and the browser times out…
I’m glad they got your car back to you. Mine was stolen a few years back; hubby left at 6am, I tried to leave at 9am and couldn’t find my keys. I looked outside; maybe he took my car instead? No, his car is gone and…so is mine. And the back door is standing open. And there’s a tall beer can outside of the backdoor with a straw in it. 18 hours later, PD calls me. They arrested two men smoking crack in my car. They said my back door was standing open around 7am and they saw my keys on the kitchen counter. The car was totally fine except it smelled like smoke and BO.
My home was invaded whilst I slept by 2 crack fiends who smell and drink beer thru a straw! :eek:
Do chain of custody rules apply if the one who found the evidence was the person whose car it was found in and not the police, and it was found after the car was returned?
Holy shit. Goose, grave, walking, etc,.
Be glad, be very glad, that your car keys were the only thing they were interested in.
I feel violated just having my car stolen while I slept; I can scarcely imagine how I’d feel knowing that the thieves had entered my home.
Sorry to hang onto your thread, I can start my own if you’d like…
I visited my car today- one flat tire, the cd player is stolen, I didn’t see my CD’s, and the front end has a bit of damage. No interior damage, no mess, and they didn’t drive it far enough to mess up my transmission (I don’t think). For being so unlucky, I’m very lucky.
Lynne_kilii congrats on getting your car back.
I hope for both you and ExTank that the police catch the miscreants very quickly.
ExTank, all I can say for the thief is that he/she is mighty lucky that **you ** didn’t catch them in the act.
Our youngest son was carjacked in March, and being as how the PD in Jackson is so inept, I went down to the ghetto and recovered my car (Hubby was at deer camp). Minus the stereo, but it had only been stolen an hour before so nothing else was harmed ('cept the thief stole all my boy’s hoodies and caps … FTW??)
I probably looked quite comical, a soccer mom with 2 - 3 teen age boys (son’s friends, he was at hospital) trying to recover this car at 2 am in the deep of the ghetto. Heh. The cop who finally came to the call (20 mins in) refused to believe it was a car-jacking and wrote it up as ‘stolen’. Fine. I’m kinda glad he did 'cause we got it towed back home. If he had hauled it in for prints it’d prolly still be there in impound. Grrr.
Nothing has ever become of the case. My son’s hospital bills are my problem. JPD won’t even answer my calls. You wanna know what most of the PD said? “Your son wasn’t shot, you got your car back, what ELSE do you want?”.
Sheesh.
BTW we recovered dude’s knife in the car. JPD told me to throw it away, “its useless for evidence now”. :rolleyes:
Do they even take prints?
When my truck was stolen and later recovered I don’t think the cops did anything other than take a report and got it towed.
There was no evidence what so ever that they did any type of finger printing. When we went to sign off on it from the insurance we were able to go to it to retrieve any belongings that may still be in it.
There was a floor jack, a five gallon gas can, several large screw drivers and a cheap socket set that were not my items. You would think that the police could see that these items were “crook” tools and would have asked about them or attempted to finger print them but again as far as I could tell they did none of that.
It was pretty obvious to me that they stole my truck to use it to steal more cars and needed something with a lot of space for their tools. They dumbed out the brand new spare tire about a block from my house.
I did the same thing. I let the dogs out the back door and walked out after them and seen my one dog run right across the driveway and it took a second for it to hit me that the dog should have run smack dab into my truck. In a daze I walked down the deck steps and looked around the corner of the house somehow thinking it rolled down the driveway. Nope it was really not there. Very weird feeling for sure.
ExTank and Lynne_kilii I am glad you got your cars back.
Sorry to hear about the car and I’m glad you got it back.
They left the mandolin?!
Heh. Being rudely awakened in the deep AM alone is worthy of considerable pain; getting awakened in the deep AM to stop a car thief from stealing your car? Didn’t we used to ahng horse thieves?
And if I didn’t have time (or coordination) to open the gun safe and load one up, there’s a nice collection of sharp, heavy cutlery hanging on my walls, and a few blunt trauma objects, as well.
Pound of flesh, indeed. 'Ware the Ren Geek!
Yup. I went in this evening to get printed for “elimination,” which means that they got multiple usable prints that are probably not from the same person. And the Maryland Heights P.D. seemed very anxious to get a complete list of everything stolen from the car, including dollar values.
They seemed kinda excited about the whole ordeal, instead of the bored/indifferent attitude I expected.
ETA: coding!
