Hacker News Reader

Comment by austincheney | Hacker News Reader

I have the world's most effective anti-theft device, there is research on this, in my car and this device saved me thousands on the retail price of the vehicle.

The mystery device is a manual transmission.

View on HN

My 1997 Civic was stolen despite having a manual transmission that sometimes is faulty. I've also had two Honda del Sols stolen, both were stick shifts. Doesn't seem to help all that much.

The mid-late 90s Civics and Del Sols are highly sought after among Honda fans! The ones with B18 VTEC motors even more so. That's why your cars were stolen despite having a stick shift.

It's even worse for the Honda CRX.

Do any B-series late 90s Civic/del Sols have B18 motors stock? Pretty sure it's all B16A(x) for the VTEC and EX editions, respectively. Integras had the B18B, though. The Integra Type-R (JDM only) had the coveted B18A3 you're referring to, I believe.

That being said the last del Sol I had stolen had a B20A(x) block and B16A3 head, the LS-VTEC hybrid. I'm well aware of their reputation for being stolen and hot parts, so much so that my last one had an alarm and a removable steering wheel and I parked it under a street lamp in front of my house. That did not work.

EDIT: The 1997 Civic I had stolen here was a junked, twice totaled, complete piece of crap with a D16 (probably actually a D15) motor, SOHC no VTEC. They still stole it. It was recovered with projector headlamps and a straight pipe installed, with the cold air intake piping removed.

Yeah, I don't understand either. But thanks for the free upgrade.

Yes, you're right. The highest spec engine in those cars is indeed the B16!

This may make sense in the context of the enthusiast market, but I somehow doubt the average car thief is that tuned in to gearhead culture.

You’d be wrong. Car thieves aren’t stealing cars to re-sell them on a lot, they are stealing them for parts for unscrupulous buyers, and street racers are a great market.

I used to own an Acura Integra. The rear spoiler was ripped off several times (carefully, so it could be re-attached to another car), and the car itself was stolen twice - the first time it was recovered in one piece, the second time it was a bare chassis without even wheels.

The Integra motor had a 10,000 rpm redline and had a cult following among Honda enthusiasts. It could be retrofitted into any Civic.

This guy is right. D, B, and to a lesser extent, K-series parts were - and ARE - in very, very high demand due to ease of installation, swapping, and durability. Oh yeah, and the secondary market for racing/show cars don't care much if the parts are stolen at all. They expect it, generally.

Any D-series motor bolts directly into any car with D-series engine mounts, and same is true for B/K series cars. Putting a B-series engine into a D-series chassis is pretty simple too, just requires some drilling and new engine mounts. Not a direct bolt-in but not difficult either.

What version of Integra had a 10,000 RPM redline? Information available online suggests the Type-R had a redline of 8,400 RPM. The S2000, introduced later was notable for its 9,000 RPM redline.

As far as I know, the top spec Type R DC5 Integra was a K20 (same as the EP3 Civic Type R) which is 8400. The older DC2 Integra Type R was 8700rpm. I forget the engine.

My mistake, the redline seems to have grown in my memory. Redline appears to have been 8,200, with a fuel cutoff somewhere south of 9,000, which was very easy to hit in 1st ...

WRT the bare chasis Integra when the police called you how did they break the news to you?

From my recollection, they didn’t have much to say. The car was abandoned in Hillside, NJ just outside of Newark, at the time at least car theft was rampant there so the police were pretty matter of fact about the whole thing. The car got impounded, and it felt like the impound lot and the police department were conspiring to keep it there (like, to get the car out, you had to get a release from the police department on the other side of town from an office with very limited hours, which was only good for one day, and then make it back across town before the impound lot office closed for the day.

I recall my insurance company ended up paying more than the car was worth (before the theft) in impound fees, before even they could get it out.

My del Sol was stripped. The cops just told me they found the remains of the car and I should come see it. It was heartbreaking but they were pretty professional about it.

Those 90s Hondas are very easy to chop up into parts and sell them at a premium.

Other enthusiast models don't suffer from similar theft rates.

How in the world have you gotten 3 cars stolen? There's gotta be something to this story.

That's pretty normal in north Philadelphia.

Cleveland in my case, but basically yes.

Welcome to Cleveland, OH (2) and South Seattle, WA (1).

You can start a manual transmission car by rolling it and popping the clutch - something you can’t do in an automatic.

Still need to bypass the key. Modern electronic engine controls wont run with only a pushstart.

That doesn't work in the UK! Automatic is for wimps or luxury cars. At least when I lived there a fe years ago.

In the UK you need to buy a pink car, they are the least likely to be stolen.

My car was in for servicing a few weeks ago, and the garage gave me a hot purple metallic car with tinted dark windows, because that was now their official dealership courtesy car, as supplied by Car Company Head Office.

When I parked it around town, people were literally laughing at it. (And me for driving it, I guess.)

According to the dealer, the car company were pitching at a young market.

They might have been better off marketing it as an anti-theft system.

I have a pink laptop cover for the same reason.

That's actually pretty smart. Even though it's much easier to remove a laptop cover than to repaint a car, a laptop thief is less likely to target the most brightly coloured, attention-grabbing laptop in the room.

Your security device won't work in South America were 95% of all cars have manual transmissions and I think the same ratio applies to Europe.

You can safely include large part of Asia as well, in India automatic is still a luxury though semi-automatic models are cropping up in few entry level vehicles.

I'm not sure about the 95% statistic in Europe but it certainly won't last much longer now that over a third of cars sold in the UK are automatic and this number is only increasing. There's no practical benefit of a manual transmission anymore besides a small cost difference (and possibly slightly more reliability), and electrification will only hasten this change.

manuals are still inherently more efficient than fluid couplings, and they are going to weigh 60-150 lbs less than a traditional automatic or dual clutch transmission. also the "small cost difference" is $1000 or more on all the new cars I've looked at recently.

They may be inherently more efficient, all else being equal, but ... all else is not equal. Automatics now get better fuel efficiency than manuals, so expect the trend of automatics taking over to continue.

i would like to see a source on this. i often see DCT or CVT versions of a car that are more efficient, but afaik, traditional fluid coupling automatics still have a hard time beating a manual transmission in the same car.

It's reached the point the inefficiency of humans reduces the overall fuel economy of a manual to equal or below a modern automatic

https://www.autoblog.com/2010/08/18/greenlings-why-do-automa...

Modern automatics spend very little time with the fluid coupling. They engage a lockup converter as soon as possible. Combine that with more gears and a computer choosing the shift points, and they are now more efficient than a manual transmission. It's been that way for perhaps the last 10 years or so.

Want a source? Start perusing the manufacturer specs and fuelly pages for cars that still have both options.

Traditional fluid-coupling automatics are not the only ones on the market. A lot of cars now have dual-clutch automatics, and there are others that combine a fluid coupling with a computer-controlled clutch.

Fuel economy tests in many different countries have confirmed that automatic transmission can indeed be more efficient than the manual transmission in the same car.

Isn't that because of the new generation of CVT and DSG automatics?

I don't think so. At this point, honestly, the modern slushbox outperforms CVTs and DSGs as well (though perhaps not the Porsche Tiptronic, which might still be faster). Modern automatics shift extremely fast, routinely have 8 or more gears, and have lockup torque converters that don't just lockup in overdrive on the freeway, but basically as soon as you're going more than a few mph.

As a die-hard manual enthusiast I persist in buying manuals for myself, but for the last 5-10 years I have had to grudgingly admit that I have no claim to performance or efficiency, I only do it because I like to drive manuals. If I cared about speed or MPG, I'd get an automatic.

You may be right about the numbers in Europe but it certainly is the case in Italy where automatic cars are nowhere to be seen (except some luxury sedans). I’ll argue this is because is way more fun to drive a manual transmission.

Aren't most Italian exotics DSGs these days?

I wasn’t talking about high end italian cars, I was talking about cars most people use in Italy. Last time I was there I forgot my driving license and was traveling with a friend from the US, we had to rent an automatic Volvo S60 for twice the price of a manual VW or fiat (automatic is rare and in premium cars)

That's an insane price difference. In Switzerland I rented an automatic (for a family member not comfortable with a manual) for only about 10% more, and they had multiple decent options. I suspect automatics may be more common here, though, particularly in the future as electric cars are gaining popularity.

Actually, a lot of cheaper VW group cars now come with the option of DSGs (just ordered a Skoda with a DSG).

I live in Europe and I don't think I've seen an automatic transmission in my entire life.

Look in the window of any luxury sedan, Mercedes, BMW 7 series or similar, and you'll almost certainly see an automatic gearshift.

In the states, that is merely a deterrent. Most cars here are manual transmissions. If you cannot drive a manual, you have a special driver's license restriction stating that.

Edit: I can't help but to comment that I had one better. I had a 1990's hatchback. The rear hatch didn't lock, but you had to do the right motions to open it lest it act locked. It was an automatic, but didn't have much "oomph". Finally, the handles to roll up the windows didn't stay on the doors. I stored them on the dashboard. (they would still roll up/down the windows, but would not stay).

> In the states, that is merely a deterrent. Most cars here are manual transmissions. If you cannot drive a manual, you have a special driver's license restriction stating that

I've never heard of such a thing, and have been driving for many years. even a quick google search didn't find anything other than questions as to why there aren't special licenses.

can you point to an example state that has these requirements?

in my part of the country (pacific nw), there are often social media posts asking for someone to loan them a manual transmission vehicle so they can get "used to a clutch".

I'm sorry, it wasn't clear enough. My mistake.

My definition of here is Norway - if you cannot drive a manual transmission, your license is has a restriction. You can get ticketed for driving a manual transmission instead of an automatic.

I was lucky and learned to drive one in the US well before I moved here, but I imagine one would need to either go to a driving instruction school, get a special permit to learn to drive one with a qualified driver, or minimally take a driving test after having illegally learned to drive one before removing it.

What are "the states" in this context?

Probably meant "outside the states"?

It's really quite difficult to find a vehicle newer than say, 2000 that has a stick shift in the USA.

A normal vehicle, you mean. There are still a number of enthusiast models that have a manual option, or in some cases (e.g. WRX STI, or Camaro SS 1LE, to name a couple) only come with a manual. For appliance cars, manuals are rare indeed. I think the new G70 from Hyundai has a manual option, but I don't think it's on the higher end model. Unfortunately that's been a trend for quite a while -- when a company does offer a manual, it's never available with all the rest of the good options, you can only get it on a base trim.

The United States

Downside is if they try and fail, and cost you more $$ and headache than if they'd just stolen the thing.

I had an old Saab that locked the manual gearshift in reverse when the key was removed. It seemed like it would be fairly difficult to defeat that mechanism without disassembling or destroying the entire shifter.

Your car can and will still be parted out. Unless you also have a particularly undesirable and unpopular car.

I, too, read the comments in the article.

(You could at least give the original author credit, rather than shamelessly stealing the joke.)

It's a pretty standard joke.

The original author was probably around the time automatic transmissions started becoming popular. How do we track that down?

I did not read the article comments :(

Reply on news.ycombinator.com