How to kill a car?

[battlestar]

So i dont know much about cars, so im gonna ask you pro's what you think about this one. I've been thinking up some pretty ingenious ways to kill a car, on command and make it useless. Obviously, this is to twart theft.

So here it is, how to kill a car in safest, permanent, but reversible way?

- Safest, so that would-be thief doesnt crash and injure himself, others or damage the car.
- Permanent, so that once its done, car is done for it, unless you unblock it.
- Reversible, so that it doesnt cause any permanent damage to the car itself.

Discuss!

[battlestar]

I'll start, now, all this might sound ridiculous, but please humor me. I enjoy taking on a challenge i know nothing about.

Just killing the car by cutting the power im thinking would be pretty dangerous? No brakes, no power, etc etc?

What about killing the fuel pump? What effect would that have on the car? Would it slowly lose power and die, or would it be same as turning off the power?

[jmkent]

Turning off fuel pump would have the same effect I think you'll find

[battlestar]

Allrighty, then lets eliminate that one. Any other way to slowly kill a car, giving a person chance to stop safely? Force the limp mode via ODB?

[battlestar]

To entice you guys a bit, the idea is to first use an old mobile with gps and gprs to send position to instamapper, paired up with jammer detector, which on command via sms or by detecting jamming strong enough to disable gprs data stream will trigger a relay to kill the car.

I plan that to be the V1 of project, later on i plan on making a full blown, homebrewed arduino kit with data, gps and jammer detector modules. Why? Because its fun.

[davidphilips]

Exploding car prank - YouTube

Exploding car prank - YouTube

[jmkent]

I'd look to cut the throttle signal, that way the engine would still run so could be stopped safely, but wouldn't allow them to get away with it

[battlestar]

Originally Posted by jmkent

I'd look to cut the throttle signal, that way the engine would still run so could be stopped safely, but wouldn't allow them to get away with it

Thats great idea! Thanks, ill go down that road, unless there is an even better one.


hehe yep, just like that david, but with sligtly more semtex, maybe 20 kilos.

[john_h]

install a hidden switch that will control the power to the instrument cluster...if anything like my ford part of the immobilizer circuit is within and if there is no power there is no turning the car on...only the electronics such as lights and radio thats it.

[battlestar]

also a valid way to imobilise a car, but i am looking at doing that remotely, and to kill it gradually. in case all other protections have failed.

after some research today, i narrowed down the hardware options, android phone + arduino board + heavy duty battery. phone will be used to transmit the location and send sms messages, while arduino will be used to control the relays.

and instead of changing everything around in 2nd phase, i will simply add things such as obd connection for feedback from car, jammer detector and a self made android app that can utilise the accelerometre from phone to detect movement and send sms about it. this gonna be fun!