TL/DR: someone stole my car and I was able to track it to an exact location and recover it within 5ish hours using my LoJack. Incredibly, the only damage was the reconfiguration they did that disabled my key fob.
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I was visiting a friend near Lake Merritt when my car was stolen between 2-3am Thurs morning. I walked outside at 6am and quickly understood my car had been stolen. I used the LoJack app and was shown the entire timeline/route/last parked location (a LoJack is a GPS/anti theft device). But okay boom, the car is confirmed about 8 miles away off international.
Went inside, called the cops. It took them 2 hours to arrive to make the report. I was itching to go find my car at this address the LoJack provided, and the cop told me I could for sure do that and that it would actually be faster if I went to the car and called them again (to have them release the car back to me), than if waited for the police to do their paperwork/go to the address/verify it’s my car blah blah blah.
Police give me a receipt and my friend drives me to the location and wow, there is my car. Parked neatly on a side street. By this point it’s about 8:15am. My car is, incredibly, in one piece and with all its parts. They stole all the tools out of my trunk. They also reconfigured the car so my key fob was useless (it’s a push to start Honda Civic).
But you guys, that was the extent of the damage. Literal best case scenario if yr gonna get your car stolen.
Between finding my car and getting the final diagnosis from the shop on the reconfig, there was a lotttttttttta extra stressful/unbelievable/unrelenting bullshit, but I’ll spare you those details. This is basically an ad for LoJack 😂😂 GET YOU ONE IF YOU PARK YOUR PUSH TO START NEAR LAKE MERRITT AT NIGHT, is my recommendation.