OK,
I remember some Evo owners compaining about their cars being stolen without any break-in or forced entry....Here is the answer:

I live in the NoVA/DC Area ad recently some news channel did a special on VIN # Thefts, "How did they steal your car?". Apparently the criminal looks for your VIN Number, for the Evo its right in the dash-board, they write down this number and go to the car dealershp where you bought it (they deduce this by little things like liscence plate frames with the name, stickers with dealer names etc.) This part was kind of shady for me : They go to the dealer tell them they have locked the keys in the car and need a spare, when the dealer asks them for info they only have the VIN number to offer (this probably takes place in the service dept.) now the criminal has the keys and can easily unlock the door start the cart and drive away. This has alreadsy happened to some cars in my area, I dont know if they are necissarily Evo's though. This is all "Word of Mouf".


-Sal

 

sounds perfectly logical actually.

 

hopefully the dealership will be smarter and ask for the owner's name, license plate number, and some other stuff. but then again, your nieghbor could still easily steal your car

 

Sounds kind of fishy. I would question the service person who ordered the new key for the individuals. Could be same person/poeple doing this behind the scenes. If the dealership gave my keys to my Evo to someone who had the VIN number on piece of paper. I'm sure if this story is true, the police are all over it. Besides there are more convincing articles proving ownership...like an insurance contract with vehicle registered owner's name, address, policy number etc. Sounds like an inside job and someone is playing the "you can't blame me...he provided me with ownership papers" game. Even if that's the case, most dealerships I hope would check a valid form of identification and log that somewhere in their database. Or at least hold themselves (meaning the actual dealership not the individual unless they can prove it was done maliciously or criminaly) responsible for the mishap.

 

They should simply just bring paperwork of the car, i.e. title, lease form, anything

 

Yeah thats the only part that I thought was hard to believe...but an inside job does sound do-able...

 

Exactly....or did they say that they left that in the car too??!?? :/

 

luckily my dealership has only sold a few evos.. i was the first to buy one from them.. this shouldn't be a problem for me.. also there's no way they can figure out where my car came from... vivid racing liscense plate frame... debadged... duct tape over my vin #....

 

are you saying dealership has a 3rd pair of keys? That just doesn't sound right.

 

A new key can be order, but it's useless on the Evo unless it's programmed on the car to deactivate the immobilzer. Each new key has to have it's chip programmed and recognized by the immobilzer's transponder, otherwise it can't be used to start the ignition system.

 

I thought you had to produce the tag number from your spare key in order to reproduce the key. I dont think dealerships have that code on the tag.

 

^ the manufacturer/factory has that code tag on file/computer

 

Because the ECU has a disabler (kills the fuel pump) if a key without the "handshake chip" is used, the dealer has to cut the key and then get the "electronic handshake" from mitsu's corp database using the vin #. The key blank is $50.00 and most dealers charge $75.00 to cut and encode the key (tip you can do this yourself with the two keys you got with your EVO follow the encoding procedure in your manual). At my dealership you must have the title/tag and ID to match the name on the regisration... or they decline to help you. I know that theres a fool born every minute but mitsu corp is real **** about this I've even heard of dealers having their performance rating (discounts sales promos corporate specials and even mitsu financing) seriously degraded for providing keys to defeat mitsu's special anti-theft system.... even when they do it by "accident" or otherwise stupidly. I vote for a major inside job... and the EVO blank is different from other mitsu blanks (I had to order my two spare blanks... took a week in southern cal!!!). Have the cops find the dealer who's ordering all the extra blanks and stop these thieves.

 

Ditto to what n00dle said. I thought the immobilizer had to be trained to recognize the new key. That fact and the little tag that EvoJimbo mentions are two "safety protocols" in place to prevent ordering a key based on a VIN from happening.

Perhaps this is an issue with other makes but it doesn't look like a problem with Mitsubishis.

 

Thanks Robi... that makes sence, at least it's like that with Honda or about any other car manufacturer.