My Lightning was vandalized!

[Cbowe]

My Lightning started overheating after a day parked at the Alameda Ferry Terminal while we were in SF. I thought it had a failure … but Ford found something I never expected.

A cut a coolant line.

My Lightning Was Vandalized

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[Heliian]

They were probably looking for the catalytic converter. Wonder if anyone else was hit in the lot?

 

[Cbowe]

They were probably looking for the catalytic converter. Wonder if anyone else was hit in the lot?

I did a police report with Alameda PD. They investigated and also talked to the ferry operator. There were no reports. I also ran the crime reporting for that location and that parking lot for the entire year. I show the report in the video and they were only two reported crimes in that entire parking lot year to date surprisingly so either there really isn’t a lot of crime there or nobody reports it.

 

[B177y]

@Cbowe
To your first theory:
You are correct with your assessment and you did a good job of making your point without getting overly political. However, I lived in Alameda for 4 years and seriously doubt it was any anti-EV issues. To put it mildly, you were in extremely EV friendly territory.

To your second theory:
I think this is very likely. Just because there were no other crime reports doesn't mean that is a crime free area. One of the reasons I moved out of Alameda and CA in general is an overall tolerance of crime. Unfortunately for me, the place I moved to (WA) has quickly equaled or exceeded the CA crime tolerance.

You wrote this while I was typing:

so either there really isn’t a lot of crime there or nobody reports it

This. I think it's become too common to bother reporting as the petty crimes are basically tolerated or not worth the time to investigate.

 

[Cbowe]

Yeah that’s what I figured and I want to be sure and have it recorded even if nothing came of it

 

[Jim Lewis]

On following up on crime. In the 1970s, I lived in Washington Heights, Manhattan, up by the GW Bridge from NJ. The door to our apartment was busted open, and my camera gear was stolen. The cop writing up the report said, "Do you have any idea who may have done this?" I said, "No! (Are you kidding me?!)." He said, "I'm sorry. I'm going to have to write CASE CLOSED. When the amount involved is less than $10,000, and there are no leads to follow up on, we close the case, as we have so many other more pressing things to chase down and not enough resources..." So, I imagine a lot of other petty crimes meet a similar fate, even if they're reported as our burglary was. And with inflation since the 1970s, I can only imagine any financial cutoff limit for investigation has only increased since then...

 

[doggod]

they were trying to get gas from truck or copper wire.

 

[Cbowe]

If they would have gone after wiring it would have been a nightmare my first Lightning had to get a new wire harness (twice lol) and it was never the same after that

 

[doggod]

I would sell after the first replacement. Had to do some wiring on my MGA back in the day. It came down to needing a lot of rubber to separate any metal switch or light from the body. And it had two 6 volt batteries, one under each seat.

 

[Cbowe]

Yeah they eventually did a buy back that’s how I ended up in my 25.

 

[chl]

Very strange.

I vote for the gas thief theory...IF it was vandalism.
But if the cut had been perfectly clean, like done with a razor, I'd agree clearly vandalism.

However the cut isn't perfectly clean, a bit rough on the back side. Could have been a sloppy cut of course.

But it looks to me like there is a cross piece of the frame that the hose could have been cut on if something was under the truck and pushed it against it. (see screen shot)

It even has a bit of coolant and a 'smudge' that looks like it could have been from the hose touching it.
From a road hazard maybe that pushed the hose up against the edge of that metal?

There have been several posts about wiring that got cut or damaged by frame pieces - behind the glove box or up under between the bed and the frame.

Was there a pool of coolant under the truck? If you mentioned that, I missed it.
Could it have happened in another location, like out on the road or on the ferry?

Well, if it happened once and it was intentional vandalism, it could happen again so...
Two words: DASH CAM.

Or an alarm system.
And a label on the truck that warns potential thieves.

Yes I had a gas-holes accost me verbally when I first started driving an EV back in 2012 (Nissan Leaf).
The guy was driving a huge Chevy Suburban and yelled at me that he loved burning gas, yadda yadda yadda.
I shifted out of ECO mode and left him in my dust.

Whatever.

My grandmother told me when I was about 3 years old, to remember the saying: "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me."

 

[blb228]

Does anyone else think it might not have been the best idea to announce this to the vandals via the internet?

 

[Cbowe]

Very strange.

I vote for the gas thief theory...IF it was vandalism.
But if the cut had been perfectly clean, like done with a razor, I'd agree clearly vandalism.

However the cut isn't perfectly clean, a bit rough on the back side. Could have been a sloppy cut of course.

But it looks to me like there is a cross piece of the frame that the hose could have been cut on if something was under the truck and pushed it against it. (see screen shot)

It even has a bit of coolant and a 'smudge' that looks like it could have been from the hose touching it.
From a road hazard maybe that pushed the hose up against the edge of that metal?

There have been several posts about wiring that got cut or damaged by frame pieces - behind the glove box or up under between the bed and the frame.

Was there a pool of coolant under the truck? If you mentioned that, I missed it.
Could it have happened in another location, like out on the road or on the ferry?

Well, if it happened once and it was intentional vandalism, it could happen again so...
Two words: DASH CAM.

Or an alarm system.
And a label on the truck that warns potential thieves.

Yes I had a gas-holes accost me verbally when I first started driving an EV back in 2012 (Nissan Leaf).
The guy was driving a huge Chevy Suburban and yelled at me that he loved burning gas, yadda yadda yadda.
I shifted out of ECO mode and left him in my dust.

Whatever.

My grandmother told me when I was about 3 years old, to remember the saying: "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me."

no coolant that we noticed on the ground but we left at 1030 at night on a 90 degree day so we guessed it evaporated or is in their gas can and hopefully ended up in their tank which would be awesome Karma.

if it had been road debris the impact I think would have had to be pretty significant and at high speed which we would have heard and would have occurred in that last few miles before arriving and we would have seen it overheat which we didn’t until 2 miles in on the trip home. It’s all a guess unfortunately and the dash cam only faces forward and has power when the truck is on. Simon from Truck’d Up EVs has a good 360 set up for his but it’s pretty involved and he had to also install a larger battery to get it to work with the truck off and not drain the 12v significantly over time.

 

[bmwhitetx]

Didn't watch the video so maybe you covered it. Beside EV vandals (which there absolutely are), there are also anti truck/big SUV idiots. Could be they thought they were disabling a big ole gasser.

 

[DavidS]

I worked in the Estuary area for almost 20 years. During daylight, there are mostly only the roving opportunistic thieves with Bluetooth sniffers looking for unattended electronics. At night things get significantly more interesting. Lots of people living in the margins doing what they need to do to survive.

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