My Macan was Stolen at 3:30am this morning - Chuck a few AirTags in your car now....

[Davidelkington]

Well, the Porsche tracking system was disabled by them, they lifted the back seats and unplugged the wires, but they did not count on an AirTag locating the car in Essex, which after a quick phone call to the police, was recovered intact and undamaged by 10am on the other side of London.

Anyone have any suggestions on security of the Macan, they seemed to make short work of the immobiliser and alarm, it did not even sound. I bought an elite Crook lock as a stopgap.

 

[ellism]

Very disturbing that the tracking system can be disabled so easily. How was it stolen? Was it one of these keyless entry driveway robberies that seem to happen so much?

 

[Davidelkington]

They seemed to get in and spent an hour in the car, leaving a couple of times. It is not keyless, one of the main reasons I bought it second hand. The police say they steal the car, park it somewhere for 24hours to ensure it is not tracked, and then dispose of. They must have been scoping it out as the false plates they put on it were from a blue Macan turbo of a similar age.

 

[BrianJ]

Interesting about AirTag and great that you found your Macan so quickly. I don’t have AirTags but presumably if the thief had an iPhone they would have been alerted to the fact that they were travelling with someone else’s AirTag as per description from Apple site (albeit they are travelling in your stuff with your AirTag): "If someone else’s AirTag finds its way into your stuff, your iPhone will notice it’s travelling with you and send you an alert. After a while, if you still haven’t found it, the AirTag will start playing a sound to let you know it’s there.”
Have I therefore understood correctly that in your situation your AirTag would play tunes to any thief who had an iPhone so that they could locate it?

 

[Davidelkington]

I have disabled the speaker in my tags just in case, but I believe they only notify people if they are on their way home with the firmware version I have in mine. I am looking at Ghost II, but I think if they are really wanting the car, they would probably find a way around that too.

 

[ellism]

Mine isn't keyless either. I figured that would make it hard to steal. Scary stuff.

 

[Davidelkington]

Yes, also, if there is someone on the forum with a blue Macan reg WA16 N** drop me a message, your plates are in use, I have them in my boot.

 

[987Phil]

How do you disable the speaker ? Because I understood the same, and that they would also show on an iPhone as an alert (even without soun)

 

[Davidelkington]

There are YouTube videos showing how to do it. Fiddly but easy enough. It does show on an iPhone, but I think they were either android users or cocky enough thinkkng they had destroyed the tracker (which was inoperative anyhow)

 

[6DW]

Delighted to hear it has been recovered..

 

[Scrounger]

The Airtag only makes a noise if you turn on lost mode on your phone or if it has been away from you for >24hrs. It will then send out a beeping noise.

Dan

 

[Neil1911]

This has blown away some of my sense of security, although its still only the second Porsche theft I've seen mentioned since joining the forums (PCGB & Macan) in 2019. David, might I ask where this happened?

 

[Davidelkington]

This has blown away some of my sense of security, although its still only the second Porsche theft I've seen mentioned since joining the forums (PCGB & Macan) in 2019. David, might I ask where this happened?

happened in Hampstead, NW London. When I spoke to my Porsche guy, he said they were flying off drives at the moment.


Still a bit shocked they managed to get round a non wireless key, very disturbing, and I have booked in a Ghost installation.

 

[whinbush]

how to disable the air tag speaker. https://youtu.be/8vAQNedIa0o
Also how and when someone will be alerted there is an AirTag near if they take your car etc. It seems it takes 8hrs + for this ?https://www.theverge.com/2022/2/10/22927374/apple-airtag-safety-update-stalking

Ive now stuck several in my 2 cars

 

[Davidelkington]

I actually put an Orbit X credit card sized tracker in the car too. The reasons for this are:

1. The battery lasts 3 years
2. It is easy to split open slightly and disable the speaker
3. It is a different form factor and can be placed somewhere unusual, like in the car manual for instance.
4. It does not have fine location search, so even if they have an iPhone, they can't sweep the car and find it precisely due to the lack of U1 chip.

 

[Jmorgan93]

Glad you got your car back.
For what it’s worth, although I’m sure you’ve done your research, I used to work for a company where we regularly installed Ghost immobilisers, and they are brilliant. The only risk factors with it (because ultimately nothing is perfect) are:
- if someone knew the service mode code for the vehicle type, they could use that to drive it. It would then re-immobilise and need your primary code to get going again if they went over I think it’s 50mph
- also if someone knows generally where installers put the ghost in macan’s they might try and find it, but that wouldnt be hugely quick or discreet.
Both risks essentially rely heavily on side info from autowatch or installers, so it’s pretty low, but I hadn’t come across any cases of that actually happening.

Dont let this put you off - if I was going to install anything for extra security on my Macan it’d be ghost, but it’s worth having a good understanding of the pros and risks!

 

[Davidelkington]

Glad you got your car back.
For what it’s worth, although I’m sure you’ve done your research, I used to work for a company where we regularly installed Ghost immobilisers, and they are brilliant. The only risk factors with it (because ultimately nothing is perfect) are:
- if someone knew the service mode code for the vehicle type, they could use that to drive it. It would then re-immobilise and need your primary code to get going again if they went over I think it’s 50mph
- also if someone knows generally where installers put the ghost in macan’s they might try and find it, but that wouldnt be hugely quick or discreet.
Both risks essentially rely heavily on side info from autowatch or installers, so it’s pretty low, but I hadn’t come across any cases of that actually happening.

Dont let this put you off - if I was going to install anything for extra security on my Macan it’d be ghost, but it’s worth having a good understanding of the pros and risks!

Thanks for your comments. I understand that nothing is foolproof, but having a multilayer security model means that it is less likely to be stolen outright.

My Ghost II is being installed tomorrow, so will let you know what the installer says. I would be very surprised if there is a code per car model, that kind of defeats the purpose. On the Autowatch site it says there is a 4 digit emergency code under a scratch off panel, so I would have thought it would be specific to the installation rather than the model of the car, unless there is another code that the installers use? I will ask when they install it.

 

[Jmorgan93]

Sorry David, to be clear, the code I refer to that can apply across models is a "service mode” code - which sets the ghost to essentially Valet mode so you can leave it with other people to drive.

That being said, the more I think back to it, I think you need to use your unique code to enable service mode in the first place, so people can’t take it unless you have actively placed it in and left it in service mode, which removes that point of risk much more!

 

[Davidelkington]

Yes, to enter valet mode, you need to have entered your code first.

The thing I am interested to find out is how many of the Macans 200 buttons you can incorporate into your 20 digit (max) pin....

 

[Jmorgan93]

There used to be a pretty solid selection - window switches, stop/start, paddle shifters, things like that.

my only word of advice which we always told customers, was don’t make it TOO long, or you’ll be there all day trying to remember the code to start the car ??