UTVOL06

In the past I've had one car stolen and that was a 2006 Yukon Denali and the outside door lock was punched in and they broke part of the steering column off to expose the wires and somehow hotwired it.

I was just wondering how hard it would be to break in and steal a parked C6. It has not keyed ignition and requires a key fob to start the car. How in the heck would even a professional car thief steal one of these?

Anomir

Thieves work very hard and not working, and I can guarantee they have developed someway of stealing any car.

johnodrake

You can't guarantee that---But I do agree that anything can be stolen given time and access. Mostly, a C6 or the like to be stolen takes a tow.

'06 Quicksilver Z06

Any car can be stolen.

UTVOL06

I agree that any car can be stolen, but would the C6 be worth the trouble if parked in a public place given all the electronic keyless systems?

'06 Quicksilver Z06

Seems like it would be. A lot of stolen cars get shipped overseas. A lot of high end cars are stolen and shipped in bulk to areas abroad.

MaxOctane

One of the main things protecting our cars is the lack of demand for Corvette parts. Though with GM making as many as they are these days, that may change...

runutzzzzz

Yup, any car can be stolen!

AORoads

Frankly any car is easy to steal, Corvette no harder. Mostly, the "contract steals" are for parts. The really big deal steals are for shipping the whole car out, and that requires a very sophisticated operation.

The Corvette may not be in that category. But it is for parts.

SlowAzzVette

S500, S600, 760 IL, Lexus, they all use smart key technology, some far more developed than the C6 and they all get stolen...
I think someone stole my car from the line cause the SOB hasn't rolled off yet.

NappysVette

The best thing is to install a simple cut off switch to the fuse bank, and only you know where the switch is. A thief isn't going to waste time, tracing wires in the elctrical system to find out why it's not starting.

A quick solution, pull out the ignition Fuse Relay. Easy.

Or, they could just flatbed it .

kornfreak_401

yes anything can be stolen...

MNVette

I agree that anything can be stolen. However, let's be realistic. Unless the thief pulls up with a flatbed, the car isn't going to be towed away. And, I agree that anyone can, given time and tools, strip the car and part it out. Time, however, is not a car thief's friend. Unless your C6 is parked where no one can see it and you don't check on it, neither of these options are very likely to happen. Smashing a window and stealing stuff from the interior of the car is far more likely.

The OP was asking if there is a way for a thief to quickly gain access to a C6, jury rig it to start, and drive off with the car in a short period of time. Of course, if your leave the fob in the car or leave the car running, any fool can drive off with it. Let's leave those stupidity-related situations out of this discussion.

Is there a way to quickly start and drive off with the car, given the above? I've asked this before, but no one has shown that it can be done.

su8pack1

Anything can be stolen if a thief wants it.

Wayne O

Any car can be stolen. Your 'average' car thief would likely take the brute-force approach with the C6 and tow it away. There are, however, quite sophisticated rings of professional car thieves armed with laptop computers and high tech gadgets that can completely 'take-over' virtually any car. A couple years ago some benevolent hackers demonstrated to Texas Instrument engineers how they could 'crack' there so-called smart key systems.

AORoads

see#15. I agree.

Buffy

Of course it can. Its just a question of how.

In fact, I have to wonder if making cars more theft resistant is in fact a Good Thing. Stuff like teering wheel locks, complex keys, embedded electronics, etc. have increased the difficultly of quietly hot-wiring a car to the point that car thieves switched tactics and started car-jacking. The automotive industry's response to this is automatic door locking. What will the car-jacker's response be?

Actually, I'm not sure they're not likely to return to "hot-wiring" as the technique of key-bumping becomes more widely known and electro-mechanical lock picking tools become cheaper.

But it could be worse! Remember the MB fingerprint lock? And the guy who got his finger cut off by car thieves? I think I'd rather just wake up and find my car gone but still have a finger to dial the insurance company's number with.

But regarding the C6, it probably uses the same Microchip KeyLoq system that many GM and other cars use. If not, its a similar system and almost certainly uses a proprietary encryption scheme with similar weaknesses.

There have been a couple of articles about the weakness of this system in the trade press lately.

KeyLoq (and probably others) use a two-part secret key, one part is the manufacturer code and the other is the car code. Once you know the manufacturer code (which reportedly isn't that hard) it doesn't take that long to figure out the car code. But it does require proximity to the fob, as the technique involves querying it and reading the response, much like the locking system does. This can be done over a fairly short range; not more than 10 meters or so and takes about an hour.

Of course we don't know at present how good GM is at assigning codes, so there could be a major weakness there. If they use a good random number generator to assign codes, then that hour is a reasonable amount of time. If its selected from a small universe, say a sequential number or something, then the job is much easier and that hour shrinks to a few minutes.

So you spend some time at Starbuck knocking back a couple of mochas, and the guy across the room with a laptop is stealing your fob code. And if you parked out front, he'll know which car to use it on, and the license number tells him where you live.

At present, most of the folks with the 133t ski11z to do this sort of hack are working on more tempting targets such as the iPhone, but one day someone will put together a theft kit for cars with electronic locking and make it pretty easy. Probably just for fun, but someone will put that to use for profit. They always do.

Force-1

Anyone use the Ravelco anti-theft system?

WD-40

Prior to 2007 the Yukon, Escalade-Tahoe units did not have a sophisticated anti theft system and are easily defeated. The Corvette is not a high theft item and the ignition can not be bypassed easily like the Yukons. Most likely scenario would be towed or if someone got your FOB.

dbradley

I actually watched a guy unlock a BMW with a Palm PDA. If it will unlock the doors and disable the alarm, how far away is starting it? This was 2 years ago...........