A week after I got the alarm installed, I left my portable GPS mounted in my street parked car in Manhattan. Within two hours, my doorman told me he noticed the hazards flashing and that my passenger side window was shattered. Sure enough, the GPS was taken. The alarm was not going off at the time. Nothing else was rifled through and my headliner mounted radar detector was still there.

It was a fun drive to a car wash to get the glass vacuumed. I left the car in a relative's garage and borrowed an old, but fast BMW M3. Driving back made me realize how slow my mini really was. I need more power now. :impatient

To top it off, a snow storm is approaching.

 

That sucks! At least your alarm alerted the doorman so that you could handle the situation quickly.

 

That is truly unfortunate . If I lived in NY or any major city, an alarm would be a must. However, I was told by a police officer once "locks and alarms keep honest people honest. Crooks will always get in" . That sucks, but I think it is true.
Best of luck with your repairs.

 

Yeah big time snow heading out way soon. Boston is also notorious for breakins. Our rule of thumb here is to never leave cell phones, GPS devices, nor radar detectors in the car. If you do it's pretty much going to be gone. =/

 

SUCKS! Portable GPSs seem to be the new targets for thieves. For a locked MINI it surely means a shattered window.

 

If it's any consolation, I believe I've heard that thieves are looking out for ANY sign that something valuable is in the car. For GPS units, they watch for the suction cup marks on the windshield.... so if you're doing that, even removing the GPS from the windshield might not have prevented this from happening.

 

Bummer.
It really sucks that you can't even expect a little security in your car.

This is one of the reasons I like the OEM nav. It's expensive, but nobody's ever going to break my window to steal it.
Hope the MINI is repaired and back on the road soon!

 

GEEZ, best of luck with the repair. Things like that definitely make me happy that I live in the practical middle of nowhere (small city in central PA - I'm in college). Although this will make me a lot more careful about leaving my GPS mounted to the windshield when parked anywhere but at my apartment. Also I'll mostly likely be getting the alarm system installed over at Morristown MINI within the next couple months.

 

I went to college in Flint MI. I was told to save up for a new window my freshman year. It wasn't a question of if your car would be broken into but when.

I learned the following about car break in
1) Alarms are pointless. They just tell the theif that there is something worth stealing in the car. Witnesses don't stop thiefs (who want's to get shot or beaten?)
2) If you take your stereo faceplate off a thief will jam a screwdriver in the unit just to be a jerk.
3) thiefs don't check if the doors are unlocked. It's a waste of time when you can just smash the window.
4) A smart and polite thief will break the window and not your locks...
5) Lit parking lots at frat houses where people are up all hours with a clear view of the parking lot aren't a deterentent.
6) You don't have to have valueables to get robbed. I had a $100 (new) base model stereo and a sub and amp i bought from a friend for $50. The thief couldn't have gotten more then $30 for everything he stole (but he did do $509 worth of damage...
7) your car can be broken into anywhere and any time. My last car made it through 5 years in a bad part of Flint and was hit in my locked parking garage
in connecticut (the garage door was stuck open for a couple of days and the thief got a key card then).

 

I take back my anywhere anytime statement.
I worked in Troy IN for my first internship. (a one stoplight town 50mi form nowhere). I joked with one of the engineers at the factory that mine was probably the only locked car in the lot. He then told me his keys were in his car. You don't steal a car in a redneck town everybody has a gun and knowbody would say anything if a thief got shot...

 

This is crap, and I'm really sorry this happened to you.

Adding to Mauberly's, point, though...they now make "no-slide" dash mounts for most GPS units because of this phenomenon. It's more or less a heavy sandbag with some grip underneath. They really do work very well. If you replace your nav, look into getting one. I have a friend that has one, and he just throws the whole thing into the glove box when he gets out. You'd never know he had a navi...

 

Ha! That is great! Like some towns in Alaska above the arctic circle. Nobody steals cars because there are no roads that lead out of town!

 

Thanks everyone for the support. I learned my lesson the hard way. Interestingly, there has been a rash of car thefts as well as a dry cleaning store daytime hold-up this past week in the same block area. I guess people are desperate for holiday money.

As for my poor car, Geico is sending a glass repair truck over to my car on Monday. They had to special order the glass. I'm glad I didn't get stuck with a knock-off from China. The only smart thing I did was to get glass covered with no deductible. I originally asked if I could get the dealer to fix it, but they would only pay $40/hr labor rates vs. $110-150/hr the dealer would charge.

I hope the glass guy doesn't damage my passenger door panel. I have an idea how to remove the panel myself after reading the speaker install thread. Any further tips to offer the door guy as I watch him like a hawk?

 

The good news is that the glass guy has probably done hundreds/thousands of window replacements on many different kinds of cars. What seems difficult and confusing to us is probably a piece of cake to him even if he has never done a MINI before.

 

Yea, but most cars come with alarms...thats mute.

I really don't care anymore...thats why I have insurance.

 

Me, I'd remove the door panel in advance - it's easy enough to do, and in my experience keeping your car pristine is not the foremost thought on a repairman's mind. Besides, you just made his job easier, so maybe he'll be more careful with the rest of the job...

Two torx screws on either side of the oval
One torx screw behind the reflector
Tug at bottom and all the way around (Bentley says use a tape wrapped screwdriver, but I've found fingers work fine)
Once the surrounding clips are popped loose, clips at the top pull straight out. Note that your 'figure 8' door handle surround will probably pop out.

 

That description is for a 2002-2004 door panel. The OP has an R56 -- a brief description here for the R56.

 

What's wrong with the world. Did anyone see that Dateline where they staged a car brake-in. People just walked by as this guy was banging a window with a bat. Crazy!

 

Great. More encouragement for future thieves to be.

 

Yeah, that segment did NOTHING for me. :impatient
Hey look, guys! Even with camera's rolling, no need to fear.

 

no, crazy would be confronting a guy that is beating a car with a bat, unless you wanted to get beat with a bat next...i'm all for being a good samaritan, but I'm not going to risk my life for someone else's property...

..still, they should have called the cops though...(not like that would have done much good either)...