Further question on Trailer Security?

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SpruceRI

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I seem to be reading all over the place about horse trailers being pinched left right and centre.

Has anyone on here had a trailer stolen that has been recovered?

If so, how did you prove it was yours, how was it recovered and unless you had your Postcode painted on the roof, how do the Police in another County know it's yours?

I'm thinking or getting the chassis and metal parts of my trailer etched with my Postcode, but do the Police spend ages trying to spot these markings or are they just left in a compound waiting for someone to claim them?

I know you can get a Tracker fitted - I think this costs about half what my trailer is actually worth! So if it my Trailer got pinched fitted with a Tracker system, do the Police make an effort to trace it, or the Tracker company?? Sorry for all the questions. I'm just trying to work out whether I should paint my Postcode on the roof, body, floor, in fact everywhere, but then if I move house it's ruined!
 
we have a wheel clamp, think trackers and postcodes are pretty useless as there not enough policemen willing or able to trace them, Insure It well, keep in a locked compound and wheel clamp, also a hitch lock for locking onto a vehicle is handy when we are at a show or park outside house for night would have to nick boith vehicle and trailer and vehicle has immobiliser and alarm and wheel clamp on too, main thing is keep it out of sight when in the locked compound, mines at a farm with caravans and other boxes very secure, and people live on site put it this way you wouldnt want to meet the dog if you didnt know him !!
 
Are you likely to move house in the near future? If this isn't a plan for the very near future then post coding is still worth doing.
Cheaper than Tracker, and a bit more inconvenient, is to get an old mobile phone with a PAYG SIM card, leave it secreted in your trailer switched on and charged up (this requires you to be able to check your trailer daily), then register the phone with Follow Us..for a very reasonable cost you can then track the phone yourself on the web if it does go walkabout..also in the event of a breakdown or other problem, your family could check your location.

This is a good system for mobile phones in any case (esp. those carried by children)..as we all know they are lost or stolen quite regularly
 
I haven't ever had a trailer pinched but my hubby has a landrover which has a tracker device fitted and the company that track it are great.If the vehicle is being used outside of the hours that it normally would be they ring up to check that you are aware of its whereabouts. A friends father also had a tracking device fitted to his car and when it got stolen he got it back within a few hours of the theft.
 
My trailer was stolen, and was recovered.
We didn't have to prove it was ours - we'd given the police its exact description and the thieves hadn't even removed our number plate from the back of it!!
My friend actually found it 3 miles down the road in an industrial site.
We now have our postcode etched into the chassis, I would imagine its just a way of proving that the trailer is yours.
 
I was at my old yard at 6am one morning and the thieves pinched an Ifor which had a bulldog wheel clamp on in under 15 mins. The trailer was sign written too with the ladys company and phone number on both sides and the back. I think unfortunately if they want it they will take it. Cheeky so an sos came back the following morning and took another!!
Someone said to me although inconvienient to take a wheel off one side and clamp the other wheel on the same side.
 
Quick horror story.

A friend's trailer was pinched from a very tricky location and ultimately found in Hexam. Trailer had been structurally altered (an Ifor HB510) on the front towing arm bit.

HOWEVER, the police had kept the trailer for some weeks in a private compound BEFORE alerting its owner, and charged her several hundred pounds for the privilege! So, she then had to go about two hundred miles to collect her damaged trailer, pay to have it released and sell it at a loss to a dealership.

The thief was caught and is paying her back at £5 per week - best of a bad job as long as this arrangement is being upheld.

I would fit a tracker, take all its wheels off, keep eight, hungry rottweilers in it, spray it a ludicrous colour and generally make it an unattractive steal!
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Not sure how you would sell it afterwards.

I kept mine clamped, hitchlocked and out of sight in a locked barn in our yard behind the house - and still worried about it getting nicked.
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Did hear of someone who painted a notice to the effect that if said trailer was NOT being towed by (specified vehicle) it was being stolen and to call the police. It was stolen!

Buy a crap trailer???
 
My answer to this was to buy the baby Bateson - two reasons - I tow with my car so needed the lightest trailer possible and I only need a trailer to take my little cob in. The Batesons seem not to be so desirable as Ivors. I also spent over £300 on a wheel clamp and trailer hitch and having my postcode put on the roof and the chassis security marked.

I also bought one that was 6 years old and whilst underneath is excellent, it has a few marks on the outside.

I also had an old Sinclair - new floor etc perfect underneath and inside but left the body looking tatty - all the new Ivors etc kept being knicked from the trailer park, but the old Sinclair always was left. Some people started doing as I did, buy an old trailer, have it refurbished so like new but left the bodywork old and tatty.

I park mine in a very awkward place to get out of - has to be moved out by hand and pushed to the road.

It is of course insured.

At the end of the day you can so only do much and hope that no one wants it.
 
lol, mine is a baby bateson too, I must have just been unlucky! The way I look at it is, as long as I get the insurance money I'm not too bothered if its stolen, pretty much all locks and chains can be cut through if they're determined enough.
 
Thanks all

I like the idea of the mobile phone, but that would be tricky. Don't suppose it would survive the English Weather or inside my trailer as it leaks!

How much are Trackers to fit and where do they put them so that thieving bu**ers can't remove them?
 
I know someone who painted thri trailer a hideous shade of brown with pink splodges and the postcode on the roof and guess what, it was stolen. Our local police recommend fitting wheel locks on diagonal wheels as well as a hitch lock. 6 trailers have been stolen from my yard, on one occasion the thieves even asked someone to move their car so they could hitch up and the (very stupid) person did as they asked without even querying who they were.
 
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