Submitted By: Maria P
Favorite Comment: Fixer Todd says, “Teenage cars will be teenage cars…I guess it’s like those crazy nipple rings.”
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Doubles As Weapon To Beat Car Thieves
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It’d work better if the chains are tighter, they’d still move now so it’s not a car-theft prevention. I guess it’s to make the car look cool or to make the chain sound or something.
It’s also so that if you turn left at speed, and there’s a minor road obstacle, your hubcaps can be ripped off. (And, I suppose, whip around in the air and decapitate a nearby biker.)
Umm, wouldn’t the hub caps just pop off? Not an effective deterrent in my opinion. LOL!
Teenage cars will be teenage cars…I guess it’s like those crazy nipple rings.
That’s silly! It’s not even snowing!
Looking at it, my first thought was “that wouldn’t work at all!” I’m picturing both of the wheels turning together. On a second glance, I think it would work if the chain was looped through two “inner” spots on the wheels, so the back wheel would be turning down and back while the front wheel turned up and forward.
@RiderLeangle
yeah, it looks like they tried to “pimp their ride” to me. i hate pimped up crap cars.
The writing on the door is an advertisement for LinkedIn.
I’d be afraid that I’d forget to take the chain off before starting to drive!
seriously??? how stupid are people???
that can never stop a car. not even if the chains are tighter. all it might do is damage the skirt.
What if thief remove RIM from his car.
It doesn’t even work as an anti-theft device! It’s not chained to anything, so all the chain’s going to do is swing up and down like the side rods on a locomotive!
…messing up the side panels that will require cardboard and saran-wrap to fix as in a previous pic!
But it might just twist the chain and even allows it to snap so either way clearly not a good anti-theft device.@JBD
Who cares about antitheft drive that sucker. You got an epic chain flail death race weapon perfect for that morning commute.
Maybe city council cheaped out and couldn’t afford the boot so this was the solution.
But side rods are attached with wheel bearings. These chains are fixed to the wheels. You’d probably get five or six revolutions before something wildly snapped. Until then it’d be a limited-slip differential. Right? I’m having trouble visualizing this one.
@Mrfixxit
I was just about to say the same thing about this being more of a limited-slip differential. Makes me wonder if something like that could actually help a car get traction when stuck (if you try this at home, please send pics!)
@Bryce
perhaps not a boot, but a slipper. light but stylish theft deterrent…
I would steal that Gen I MR2
I think its more of the “intimidation” factor. After all, how smart are most opportunist car thieves? They have a screwdriver and a crowbar. Most aren’t going to walk around with heavy-duty bolt-cutters or torches. That being said, you have to wonder how desirable that car is? Top 10 list of being stolen? People do strange things to keep track of their cars, and until this guy can afford a lo-jack, I guess dragging around 10 feet of chain is it.
Umm.. how would it ever transfer power for traction? And comparing the idea to a limited-slip differential is an apples to oranges comparison. A differential allows two wheels on the same axle to turn at different speeds (wheels on the inside of a turn need to travel less distance than the outside wheel). Limited slip varieties limit the amount of difference that one wheel can turn compared to another. Open diff’s would allow one wheel to spin freely if that tire had no resistance (think of having a wheel in the air, or on ice etc.) while the opposite wheel would have no power sent to it at all. Limited slips would prevent this and send at least part of the power to the wheel with grip, hence their use in sporty cars and trucks that need grip for towing.
The chain would transfer power at most for only half of the tires’ revolution, after that, the powered wheel would be able to spin without affecting the rear wheel at all, putting slack in the chain for half a revolution and taking the slack out on the opposite half.
The only way this chain will immobolize the car is if it’s tied between the two closest points on both wheels and has no slack… Wow, I should really be working right now..
WIN!!!!
I bet when he/she returns. they’ll wish they put 25 cents in the parking meter.
Those are not hubcaps, so no popping off. It would roll for a few revs, then twist tight and pretty soon just break. Then you have a random length chain swinging from each wheel, tearing up your fenders and finish. Woohoo.
What is wrong what those people? Too bad they do this to a lovely first make MR2, they are pretty rare these days. I have one too.
Yes you are allowed to think they are ugly, but litterly nothing drives as good as the first make MR2, it is lovely.
@RRR
Not as good as the Fiero, but it will do.
Right. I am getting a whole “Before & After” vibe to these two pictures.
I’ve always thought of these setups being more to thwart tow truck drivers than thieves. Tow truck drivers being a class of thief anyway.
no its not. i love my 84 fiero and it wouldnt trade it for an MR2 for the life of me
@LSD
I don’t see how it would be different on a fwd car. In any case, this car is rear wheel drive.
Maybe there just wasn’t a pole here to tie it to.
Yes, and this is poly carbon chrome steel heavy duty log chain, its going to rip out a spoke or tear the wheel off the hub or yank out an axle before it goes very far.
also looks like it is looped thru a metal loop embedded in the curb just next to the overgrown grass
um… maybe it’s to prevent thieves from stealing the “hubcaps.” Or tires. It may not prevent the car from going anywhere, but the wheel plates and tires aren’t going anywhere unless something gets cut. It’s not to prevent the car from being stolen, but rather the parts. The idea is frequently seen on bikes with wheels that come off for easy transport, and looks like the car owner just extended the same idea for his car. Not that car wheels come of easily…
I like how most of the arguments for how this would “work” revolve around (heh) one or other of the wheels spinning up…. Or that it would make any difference which end the power goes to (how?).
So the solution would be for the thief to pull away without wheelspin, then? Like any other driver 99% of the time? Or to reverse away if the power’s at the “wrong” end?
It does seem to be secured on parts of the wheels that don’t match up, but even if – via wheelspin, differential action, or whatever – it ended up so the two furthest points were connected, there’s too much slack for it to make much difference. Besides, whichever tyre has less traction would just end up slipping until the two matched (and the drivetrain quite easily coping with this force, not dying after “5 or 6 revolutions” of it).
There is SOMETHING on the ground contacting the chain, so maybe they’ve made use of a drain cover or similar as some kind of ghetto ground-anchor? Maybe even an actual motorcycle ground lock?
Nothing like a car that’s into S&M!
This is obviously an avid cyclists first car. I mean, how else would you lock your vehicle?
Nobody’s mentioned that, if you think about it, the chain will twist up when the car moves. (Both wheels go the same direction, but the chain has a 180 degree change from end to end.) Give it 50′ before it rips the spokes out.
I’m glad that someone sees how it is supposed to work. The wheels turn in the same direction relative to a pedestrian observer, but not relative to the chain.
Boudicea, 21st century style!
is this guy just stupid or what? didn’t he calculate that the wheels spin in the same direction and therefor the chain will have no effect? only on turning raius, if it’s not long enough to alow the wheel to turn… LOL that’s all i’ve got to say xD
You’re all missing the beauty of it. The real theft deterrent here is that this causes so many people to stop and stare, to take pictures of it, and to postulate on what will happen when the wheels start turning that a thief never gets a chance to steal it.
I think the money he spent his car would be put to better use by moving to a better neighborhood. Just a thought…
Wouldn’t the chain just go around and around like that bar on the side of a Choo-Choo train’s wheels???
lol, nailed it.
Ray is right, Jack is wrong. As the wheels turn they will twist the chain into an increasingly tighter spiral until either the chain or part of one of the wheels breaks, or if both are exceptionally tough the car will indeed stop.
Still a stupid idea though.
Well, the point of this is presumably to be an anti-theft device, not a self-destruct device. So it doesn’t actually need to work, it just needs to look like there’s a chance it might work. This sort of thing would be just bizarre enough to make most thieves shake their heads in dismay and pick the next car.
LOL! (oh, wait, you were being serious…)
@sai cheez
That is not a “crap car”, and it is not “pimped up”. Yes, the chain is FAIL, but the car itself is a relatively rare 87-89 supercharged version with stock rims, spoiler, side skirts, etc. The chain is the only thing about that car that is FAIL. The rest of the car is in good shape, and has not been modified from stock with the exception of the decal and a paint job. If you want to talk about “pimped up crap cars”, talk about a civic or something, not a rare sports car. (BTW- that car was designed by Lotus, it would have been the 80s version of the Exige had Lotus not given the design to Toyota.)
You could drive this car with the chains attached as they are all day long. The twisting that people are writing about above won’t wind the chain into a spiral at all. Each revolution of a wheel will be matched by an equal revolution on the other wheel. This will have the effect of the chain rotating as a whole. Yes, the mounting points will get badly scratched, and the slack in the chain will whip up to the sides of the door heavily damaging the bodywork, but the ability to drive the car away won’t be badly affected at all..
No matter what would happen if someone attempted to drive the car with that chain on, I’d LOVE to see this in action. Can’t someone with a piece-of-shait-car try this out and put it up on Youtube or so? Pweeees!!
That’s not going to work. All the thief has to do is remove front and rear whatevers. They’ll be tied to each other by the chain, but nothing else. Then the thief can remove the chain elsewhere at their leisure.
@Cathal
Actually, the front tires do rotate more often (in forward motion), while the rear tires tend to do more of a pivot.
Tires (even on the same axle) do not travel the same distance. Motor vehicles contain a device called a differential that allows the tires to rotate at differing velocities. Although same side tires dont have a differential, (mainly because it is unnecessary due to one set of wheels being the drive wheels, and the others essentially being drug or pushed along) they follow the same principle.
Welcome to “There I Fixed It: Mythbusters Edition”
lol ghetto (1/2)AWD conversion, choo choo train style.
Actually, it IS a rear wheel drive vehicle, and those are aluminum alloy rims, not hubcaps. The way he has it hooked up, the chain doesn’t look like it has enough slack to sit with the chain at the far ends of each rim. I suppose that’s the idea anyway. I think there’s a major conceptual flaw though: A car thief is going to break in on the driver’s side most of the time, not the passenger. They wouldn’t even see this.
This is probably more effective than “The Club”. Cheaper too.
I didn’t mean to say it’d work, just to explain what seemed to be the reasoning.
Go and check the 80s Car & Driver review of both cars. Not only is the MR2 SC faster (0-60 similar to a Ferrari of the day, if memory serves), it handles better and hasn’t had close to the number of failures/recalls of the Fiero. The Mk 1 had dozens of awards and graced best-of lists for years while the Fiero was on none.
This is a fairly dumb thing to do, seeing as both wheels move in the same direction, so there would be no trouble running the car whatsoever.
Thereifixedit Admin: THIS is the fav quote!!
I love all you people that are seriously arguing about this or Fiero’s or whatever! Just laugh & don’t try to figure it out – who know why they did this? Maybe just to get an interweb reaction. <-In that case, job well done.
Ah. This man wishes only for his rims to be stolen in PAIRS.
Given how many of my friends have had their Mk1 MR2s stolen, I can kinda see *why* he did it, but… there’s got to be a better way.
First of all, what kinda idiot would steal a 198maybe6 MR2 anyway? Go steal a civic, dangit! Or a slightly valuable car, maybe even! Second off, maybe put the chain on the inside of the back wheel? Clog that tiny wheel well up like crazy!
Now you can be towed away side ways!
the hub caps would fall off if they had hubcaps.. but seeing as those are wheels, it wouldnt fall off
@Beadknitter
I believe these are to discourage others from trying to steal the rims. It seems like it would not be too effective, and it would probably just bring attention to the car.
@Kel
YOU’RE right, honda civics are awesome! i mean civics are generally ugly and slower, but its not A HUGE difference. also someone could easily cut that chain with the right TOOL.
*@fartparticles sorry.
“Dam teenagers!”
or
“Chuga-chuga-choo-choo.”
or
“It’s for towing your car sideways faster.”
or
“Who needs a car alarm, this works just as well, and leaves a trail of metal and car parts to follow.”
or
“Redneck train. (ecxept that it’s a nice car)”
If you attached a second chain, could it function as a chain drive? I’m kind of interested. Overall, I think this construction would do damage to the hubcaps and the side of the car. Oh, and maybe damage to the tires while you’re turning.
This is just an incorrect implementation of one of Red Green’s anti-car-theft concepts. The chain is meant to be on the wheel nuts and much tighter.
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