Tractor Theft Prevention

[TractorNH]

This is a hot topic but didn't find any specific threads to answer this question:

Since a lot of tractors (at least in the same brand) share the same key, the key is hardly a theft deterrant. Besides storing your tractor in a locked building or under 24 hour watch by armed guards, what have you done to make your tractor more difficult for the slime-balls of the world to steal? Ideas like adding a hidden switch in a safety inerlock, electronic relays that require a fob, steering cylinder locks, lojack, etc. What makes you sleep better at night besides having your tractor insured?

It just amazes me that these tractors are such big and expensive targets for theft but little is done to secure them. More is done to prevent theft on a $20k car than a $40k or $60k tractor. Just baffles the mind...

 

[Lnk]

We just make sure to have tractors that no one else wants. Being rural as we are, it would take someone with big bells to come up the drive and steal a tractor. We all know all the cars that come down our rural little road. Neighbors watch out for neighbors around here. We did have a guy drive up to our house once that seemed sketchy and had a wandering eye. Said he was looking for someone who used to live here. We are the second owners of this house, so he was full of beans. I let him know we were retired and always home and his friend doesn't live around here as we know all the neighbors. Haven't seen him since. I think he was scoping out the neighborhood.

I know this doesn't help you directly, but know your neighbors. Used to live in MA so I understand that is not how it is up there. You could make it that way...

LNK

 

[M5farms]

just carry insurance and know what lives around you. I don't worry about it too much besides unless they are stealing it to resale they don't exactly have a high speed vehicle . I would say most of the thefts here are just teenagers or drunks going for a ride or just pure meanness.

 

[sixdogs]

Way back I just decided to build a cheap machinery barn for storage and I keep it deadbolt locked at night. Plus, I always leave it in gear so that it's hard for a newbie to figure out to start it. There are times when I need to leave it away from home. If close to a house I'm working on I just park it against the house by a window. If further away I either leave it attached to a big implement or if no implement have been known to chain the tractor it to a tree. Works for me.

The way to get something stolen is to leave it in view so someone knows what you have. That makes the task, if someone is so inclined, much easier. If they can't see it either in a barn or around the corner, it's harder for a crime of opportunity to present itself.

I think the day is coming when we will have some sort of hidden stick-on sender with a long life battery in it that will pinpoint it's location.

 

[/pine]

This is a hot topic but didn't find any specific threads to answer this question:

Since a lot of tractors (at least in the same brand) share the same key, the key is hardly a theft deterrant. Besides storing your tractor in a locked building or under 24 hour watch by armed guards, what have you done to make your tractor more difficult for the slime-balls of the world to steal? Ideas like adding a hidden switch in a safety inerlock, electronic relays that require a fob, steering cylinder locks, lojack, etc. What makes you sleep better at night besides having your tractor insured?

It just amazes me that these tractors are such big and expensive targets for theft but little is done to secure them. More is done to prevent theft on a $20k car than a $40k or $60k tractor. Just baffles the mind...

I don't see it as a "hot" topic but it has been discussed at length in several threads on TBN and other forums...just about every conceivable method of anti theft device/remedy has been covered at length...

 

[seasled]

Locks only keep honest people honest, if thieves really want it it is gone!
Sad reality!

 

[iflywhatevr]

If they really really want it they can have it and insurance can buy me a new one or repair that one. I don’t store equipment outside so it’s kind of out of sight out of mind for would be hooligans. I don’t lock the barn or the tractor cabs.

 

[CMV]

Locked shipping container with 2 cut-proof (yeah, right) padlocks. That's more for the compressor, generator, tools, etc in there than the tractor. I would think those would grow legs first. But someone wants it, they're gonna get it. Best I can hope for is the cameras get real good pics of them and their vehicle. I do try very hard to keep stuff out of sight - someone delivering a load of gravel for example - I try not to have anything interesting "on display". I figure locked gate, locked container, that should be good enough to demonstrate to insurance company that "I tried" (if that even matters), but since remote property, no neighbors within half mile, someone intent on getting anything really has all night to fiddle with it - they'll win.

 

[/pine]

...I do try very hard to keep stuff out of sight...

This is why I refrain from selling stuff on CL (casing looters)

 

[Ritothebull]

I don't really bother to lock anything at my place and I leave my keys in most of my equipment. Were not far from town but we live on a dead-end road in a rural area and don't get many visitors coming up our road unless they know someone or have some business back in here. It might have something to do with all the gunfire that goes on around here in the evening and on weekends.