Best way to secure trailer from thieves

[July dreamer]

With airtags you set them up on your own phone to show where they are with the "find my" app. But they recognise any iphone and will react to it, so if you leave your trailer parked up and go for a ride, if someone with an iphone goes within range of the airtag it responds and you can check the location of that airtag on your phone. The stranger with the iphone knows nothing. For example, if I leave my car in a car park (I also have them in my car) and walk a couple of miles, I can check the location of the car on my phone and it will say something like 'last seen 2 minutes ago' because someone with an iphone has walked past my car - hopefully where I left it. Not sure I'm explaining it very well, but hopefully if the trailer goes missing someone with an iphone will walk past and allow you to establish the location of the airtag and hopefully the trailer.

 

[hollyandivy123]

Whilst tied to the trailer at an event, my friend's horse decided to sharpen his teeth on the side of her new Ifor Williams 510 trailer, scratching a perfect arc in the panel. He then moved onto the next panel!

A week or so later, three of the four Ifor Williams trailers were stolen from the livery yard, leaving her's parked on it's own!

Morale of the story I guess, is to make your trailer less attractive to the thieves - personalize it with your postcode on each panel, or decals / paint it a different colour etc. Something to make it more unique. Plus of course preferably a hitchcock and wheelclamp. ?

off topic but one of my mates who buys ridiculously priced bikes..........first thing he does is to paint it to look like a pile of junk, rust spots and a bit of peeled paint, including fake destressed rubber on his tires

looks awful but works well so far

 

[w1bbler]

Postcode in large letters on roof & side panels, makes it hard to sell on so a great deterrent

 

[Sealine]

I’m not so sure about the postcode deterrent. We had a trailer stolen from the yard. Luckily not mine but they did take the one with a postcode on the back in large decals. The thief had a choice of about 8 trailers and they picked that one. It had the same locks as the others but it was newest.

 

[Alibear]

My insurers require a hitch lock and a wheel lock, so that's what I use. Yard has CCTV. I use my trailer most weeks, so I can't do anything too drastic to secure it, and as others have said, if people want to steal it, they will.
I had one that was an attempted theft many years ago. They made so much racket trying to get the hitch lock off that the yard neighbours phoned the police. Who came out and found it secured to the back of the transit van using the seatbelts from the van. Van was also stolen.

 

[myheartinahoofbeat]

^^^ Well my insurance stipulates that I MUST "secure" the trailer when I am leaving it unattended away from home, so I do. Hopefully they'd pay up in the event of it being nicked - and I do have a get-us-home insurance policy.

Yes, they told me it should be secured but when i asked how, they didn't have any suggestions

 

[Polos Mum]

One of my neighbours has a purpose built concrete pad with a large metal loop, she uses a massive heavy motorbike chain (I think) to chain the trailer to the concrete underneath (after having 2 stolen!!)

She once got up and found four random bits of chard grass and little bits of plastic, we eventually worked out they'd hitched up the trailer, gone to zoom off then the chain had stopped them and they had stopped so hard the airbags had gone off in their car and the tyres had burned the grass - ha ha ha - an expensive non theft.

 

[myheartinahoofbeat]

off topic but one of my mates who buys ridiculously priced bikes..........first thing he does is to paint it to look like a pile of junk, rust spots and a bit of peeled paint, including fake destressed rubber on his tires

looks awful but works well so far

We bought a new Equitrek this summer. I've going to have to make it look tatty now!

 

[Annagain]

If your trailer is parked on its own, there's little you can do if they really want it. If it's parked with other trailers, it's a bit like a zebra - it doesn't have to outrun a lion to stay alive, it just has to outrun one other zebra. The best you can do is have one more deterrent than the trailer next to it. Most people at my yard have just a clamp (gates are locked at night) so I have a clamp, a hitch lock and a metal pole in front of mine.It's also data-tagged and has the stickers and transfers all over it (not that I'm convinced it's that great a system). If anybody wants a trailer there will be others that are more attractive to them / easier to steal than mine.

 

[Wizpop]

I used a firm once that etched my postcode on the windows and panels and provided a sticker to inform potential thieves that this had been done.( they also provided me with photos of all the etched part of the trailer) I can’t remember the name of the firm now. This was done after previous trailer theft and I felt a lot more secure after having it done and no more problems! I also used a Bulldog wheel clamp on the rear wheels.
if you do decide to remove a wheel, take the spare off too!