Fuel Costs, Fuel theft prevention from an XM

[kenhall1202]

As the price of fuel skyrockets the reports of fuel thefts from all sorts of sources eg cars, lorries, oil storage tanks etc etc are on the increase. The BBC One Show featured this on Monday night and showed a few anti theft devices. An attemped farm diesel theft in North East England resulted indirectly in the death of the farmer's wife from a suspected heart attack and her son being hospitalised after being driven at by the thief. There are people prepared to go to pretty desperate measures to get their thieving hands on fuel wherever it might be.

As I live in a relatively quiet country village and my car is parked outside on the road I feel that the risk of attempted fuel theft will increase as the country's present economic gloom deepens.

The obvious quick fix on the XM would be a good quality locking fuel cap to supplement the flimsy plastic locking flap. Anti-syphon devices for fitting in the filler pipe are around but seem to cater for only commercial vehicles. Some cars have anti-syphon devices fitted as standard - I don't know whether Citroen fitted anything to the XM. Parking the car on its lowest suspension setting would be a nuisance but would probably thwart any attempt to access to the plastic tank from underneath.

I'd be interested to hear other forum members thoughts / experiences / advice on this topic.

Regards

Ken

[xmexclusive]

Hi Ken

Thought about this a bit over the last week or so. From experience XM's are not easy to syphon when you want to treat the car with respect. Scum protection is more difficult. Lowering the suspension is a pain but quite effective in restricting access. Perhaps we should all fit little gas conversion stickers on the window by the filler car. Hopefully there will not be too many gas syphoners out there. The other easy change I am considering is to only half fill the tank each time instead of filling to the top.

Regards

XMexc

[citroenxm]

ah ha!

Yes, LPG a little harder to take, and the fuel kept in my tank wont get them 20 miles

Paul

[Andmcit]

Already had a Xantia attacked with a badly positioned scissor jack under the offside sill and the
pipes cut into and the fuel removed though fortunately there wasn't much...

The plastic filler cap on the back wing was totally ruined too with the surrounding area of the
bodywork levered against creating permanent damage to a very awkward to repair area on the
car. The repair of the pipes was a real PITA too.

In fact the fuel lines are not very well positioned at the best of times and I've even seen an Xm
with them drooping alarmingly and visibly well below the sill line almost as an open invitation.
Years past it was the spares that were stolen from under the car. What next!!

House heating lpg tanks out in the 'sticks' are being emptied too.

This Country is well down the pan now - I TRULY HATE IT!!

Andrew

[Andmcit]

Actually, the Catastrophic peverter is a very valuable scrap item and I already know
how valuable to scrap scum nice alloys are...

Andrew

[bigjohnh]

A few years ago a friend of mine was having petrol stolen regularly from his Land Rover, These are notoriously easy to steal fuel from due to their large filler and flimsy lock.

We made a sticker which we stuck adjacent to the filler saying DIESEL ONLY. Thus the scum stopped attempting to nick his petrol and if anyone did they ended up with petrol in thier diesel tank and a potentially expensive repair bill.

The siphoning stopped.

Just a thought.

John

[DoubleChevron]

I put the cars in my backyard ....... Where the 45kg rottie roams ... If they want the fuel enough, there welcome to go into my backyard and take it !

It's a PITA moving everything up the yard.... SWMBO told me there's 13cars up there (not to mention the 3 trialers and caravan

Am I the only one that feels like putting a nice bit capaciter charged with about 50,000volts on the fuel flap door

seeya,
Shane L.

[Andmcit]

What can you do?

'Spike' your own fuel tank on the car if it's not in regular use
- guess that'll stop them coming back!!

Andrew

[robert_e_smart]

One could be quite nasty about this - I don't know how this would be possible, but I would like the offending fuel syphoner to get a mouthfull of piss, or other nasty substance, whenever he/she tries to syphon fuel out of may car.

[Ciaran]

I'd truly love to do something like that, only problem is you'd no doubt be charged with infringing the little darling's human rights....

Ciarán