I've been noticing a few people on craigslist posting about stolen equipment. It got me thinking, because I was parking my machine on busier street. Now, I've moved it to the back of the site, out of visibility. I have a 12k lb Komatsu excavator, and it seems that all Komatsu keys are the same, so, clearly that is not very secure. I wanted to throw it out to see what others are doing. I was thinking to lock the hydraulic engagement lever to the up position, but someone could cut (or freeze/brake) through the chain. Another thought was to throw a cheap phone inside, which has GPS tracking. Any other ideas?
As the saying goes, locks are made to keep honest people honest. On backhoes they lower the out riggers and someone comes along and fills the lock hole with epoxy, now it has to be cut off. Remove the battery and they have been know to push it on a trailer. Cutting hoses is easy and the cost to fix isn't that much. They drill a hole through your fuel tank and as another mention, just tap the hole and put a plug in so they won't drill another hole next to it. Taking it home or hiring security is about the only good way
If it has the usual main battery relay in the battery compartment, wire a good quality switch into the activating wire from the key switch, hide it well, can be a key switch or just a sealed toggle or whatever. Turn that off when you leave it parked, most thieves or other miscreants will just assume dead batteries if it won't crank, they'll never look for the reason.
What lantraxaco said, or you could get fancy and have a locksmith rekey your ignition tumbler to "your key" But if I still wanted it I might pull up on a day with my vest on in plain sight and "work" on the machine to get it started and on the trailer. Good hunting cameras work at catching license plates. If it becomes a ongoing problem set some bait...
Around here they have started to show up with tilting flatbeds with winches right in the middle of the day! so if you leave the machine in an easy to drive to spot they will get it one way or another unfortunately. You might check out some of the gps trackers on ebay 40-50 bucks gets ones that are true gps then you just have to buy a sim card and put in it.
Unfortunately if a thief wants it bad enough, they'll get it. It's what insurance is for, wish I had a better answer. What we do is park the machines in a group, the smallest pieces or trailers corralled by the bigger machines in a well lighted area if available. All the Cat iron has disconnect switches and those are turned off every day. That's about the best I can do other than low bedding a 321 back and forth everyday which is not feasible. The problems we have is theft of batteries and vandalism.
Friend of mine recently had his Tak TL150 stolen from a jobsite, they dropped it off on the first on ramp they came to about a mile away. A month later thieves hit his 963 over the weekend. They stole a brand new set of rails and pads off of it, loaded them onto a stolen trailer which they then drug the axle out from under and abandoned the whole operation. Its amazing the effort people go to just to steal something. John
There are a lot of GPS tracking options available, most of them more sophisticated than a cheap cell phone that won't work if it isn't charged anyway. If it were me, I would buy one of those vinyl coated wire rope setups you can get at Homeless Depot or other similar store, run it through both tracks and around the boom or other convenient place and throw a nice heavy duty lock on it. THAT will discourage the casual thief. I would also do a web search, find a good GPS solution that ties into the vehicle's electrical system for power (with a battery backup of course) and preferably the kind that calls you on the cellular network if the vehicle is disturbed. Then I would either hire an installer or do it myself if I felt confident, but I would wire it in a way to be as low profile as possible. In other words, not powering it right off the battery where it can be easily spotted. THAT will deal with the professional thief. Oh yeah... Good insurance with a replacement policy. With a vehicle that you use for business, downtime is even worse than the actual theft. Even though you may have theft coverage, you want to make sure it's replacement coverage and if it's available, get coverage that also pays for rental while you arrange to buy a new machine.
I like the GPS idea but just make sure it's hidden and has it's own power source as batteries are the first items stolen. The last time they stole 6 batteries out of 3 machines. Butchered the leads getting them out. Deputy told me it was probably homegrown meth cookers, they use the acid to make meth and then sell the batteries for scrap..
The thing with GPS I've been seeing lately is that the antennae are alway visible somewhere on the machine. The other issue is whether or not it stays working when you need it to.
Something like this?? http://www.mscfab.com.au/machines/excavators/guards/
We had a few guys around here that needed some stuff watched or protected from theft. They had Rottweiler's that had the voice box cut and chained close to machines and other agricultural operations stuff. Worked like socks on a rooster.
I'm sure glad I live here in the bumhole of the world and don't have to worry about this stuff. Hell, we don't even pull the keys most of the time.
Hey Dickjr, I've always wondered, have any of you guys who use this expression to mean, "it worked well", ever seen a rooster... Or a pair of socks?:beatsme
I had a broken screen phone. I was thinking to hide and hardwire the charger to the battery. Any of you guys logged into google can see this: https://maps.google.com/locationhistory/b/0 For $15/month , I can see where the machine is. I think I'll still try to lock it, but I've seen the trucking company just winch it onto a flatbed.
voice box cut --- not nice
If it's newer it should have komtrax what - model is it?
07'
So it's a pc50mr-2?
correct, pc50mr-2
I agree. I would never to that to a dog.
Should have komtrax level 1 which will tell you location and hours.
I wouldn't do that either , I have two little hell cats beastly animals. The ferocious dachshund. They could guard equipment , well the pup could , the older one eat sleeps and farts. This one , Copper James has his fighting collar on. Mostly he fights pitts . The occasional shepherd.
hey they use to sell a anit theif deterent called lo jack and from what I had heard it worked great. You could look that up and see if it is still avable. mitch
I got subpoenaed to go to court on the 9th for the dirt bag who stole my lowboy and truck a year ago. They are asking for 10 years serve two. Not sure how it will go down but if I get my say I'll nail him to a cell as long as I can. I just got lucky the truck was recovered in less than 24 hrs. I now have a secret switch for the ecm and I'm going with a hidden fuel shut off. I've heard a shipping container will block gps trackers. A major pipeline company around here has trackers on their gear. They recovered a PC400 way down in South Georgia after it was stolen thanks to the tracker. Scary stuff. Criminals have nothing to lose and are super bold. This thief drove my 18 wheeler to his house and went inside to sleep.
People that have moved equipment know how easy it is to load up a piece and be gone in 10 minutes or less. Generally if a truck and lowboy roll in the general public pay no mind even if its late at night. I bet the guy that took your rig will get 10 years serve 18 months then probation , especially if he has no violent crimes on his record. I have had a few things stolen , small items , my biggest problems are dead beat payers. A crew from here had a backhoe stolen , 4 years later it was parked on the side of new circle road in Lexington. The police had the local case dealer look it over and identified it as stolen. The owner got it back ,had about 2000 hrs more on it. Never caught the perp. I read somewhere that JD has some sort of pass code you can program and have to enter on they're new stuff. Like a pass code on an IPhone. That would work pretty well I think.
Yeah, they are effectively a Faraday cage. Used to be, all you had to do was mount couple of severed heads on either side of your front gate and it was pretty effective at discouraging thieves; but nowadays the EPA will give you all kinds of crap for that.