**UPDATE**

In a strange and frustrating yet happy turn of events, my car is now back in my possession. The story goes:

-The car was towed from private property (my complex) the night it went missing. The reason was because my registration was expired (or so they thought, completely different story...) and the towing company has a contract with my apartment complex that gives them the right to scan the parking lots and tow at will (great feeling :/ ).

-The tow company never contacted the Police Department to notify them of the tow, or maybe they did and it was a clerical error at the PD.

-The tow company did not contact me for 13 days, and only did so by certified mail that was dated 13 days after the tow. They also never told the property owners they towed a vehicle off the lot.

So basically my car was sitting in a tow lot the past 2 weeks, reported as a stolen vehicle, and the tow company did not follow the procedures that are required when towing a vehicle. They must report the tow to the PD within 2 hours, and notify the owner within 48 hours.

To say I am unhappy about this would be an understatement. I got my car back free of charge (damn right) and I'm ready to put this situation behind me.



















Please DM me if you have any details!!!!!!!!

 

This may sound dumb, but, did you drive it last and park it? Did you have friends over last night? My son and his friends play pranks on one another and re park the others car without them knowing it. Sorry to hear about it. Good luck. Stolen MINIs don't happen very often here in Arizona. I think they are hard to steal. I would assume the Police checked with the apartment complex to see if they had any cameras/recordings and any surrounding business'. You may want to do some checking on your own.

 

I was the last to drive it, and there is no way somebody could have taken it as a prank because I have both keys (not that my friends would do that).

I know MINI's are hard to steal... I'm not even sure if they can be hot-wired. Maybe it was towed off, or started some other way (not enough room to pop start it).

Thanks!

 

That's terrible. Weird car to steal, the parts aren't easy to get rid of other than a forum. Ask neighbors if they seen anything and I pray your insurance is good. Best of luck.

 

call the tow company your apt complex uses in case it was towed by mistake. ( yes they're supposed to report tows to authorities, but they could have f'd that up too)
Also call your bank/loan hold incase they repo'd it by mistake. ( see previous parentheses) Best of luck!

 

So glad I have a garage . Sorry for your loss.

 

+1 on all accounts above. Sorry and good luck. Very rare for a MINI to be stolen. If it wasn't a mistake (loan or complex) then it was a pro job, rollback or a stinger system could have carried the car away. They did not hot wire it there I would bet, pretty hard to defeat the system. Any skid marks where it was drug? (either auto in park or stick with parking brake). Camera nearby at a restaurant, bank, ATM, neighbor, entrance, street corner for red lights, etc?

So sorry for you and good luck. Look on CL for those wheels, could be under a honda ad too as they are also 4x100 on some cars.

 

Very surprising. Thieves probably wanted your nice leather interior and the wheels. Keep your eyes on craigslist and good luck.

 

i am located in CT as well. i dont go out much, but if by any chance i see it il be sure to track them down.

as everyone else said, check for tire marks. if there is no broken glass, it really points towards a tow.

ask the apartment place, then call tow places. call the bank... etc. everyone else has the right idea.

apparently at this day in age... entire planes can just disappear, so unfortunately it can happen with cars too.

hope things work out for you.

 

Thanks for the wishes everybody.

Unfortunately the bank confirmed that there was no repo, and the complex confirmed that it was not towed. It was definitely stolen.

There are no tire marks, glass, or any other indication of how it was taken. The complex does not have a security camera, there are only houses around the lot.

I am hoping that the police do everything they can (checking traffic cams, nearby street-facing cameras, etc) but if they stole it for parts I am sure it will turn up in Hartford somewhere abandoned and on cinder blocks.

 

First call is to the police, the second one should be to your insurance co..

 

Nightmare to wake up to, sorry for your loss, albeit hopefully temporary.

All great suggestions above. As difficult as it can be.....maybe someone rec'd duplicate Radio Remote/key thru BMW. Call your local dealer in CT and have them run the last 7 of your vin and see if a key was recently ordered/delivered to them. They could even go step further and contact Jersey to see if one was cut/delivered to another dealer near by.

There are safeguards in play to prevent such things from happening, but anything is possible depending on determination of individual.

GL!

 

I'm in Milford CT and will keep an eye out. Hope it turns up.

 

Sorry to hear this , hope you can track it down. +1 on checking on the cut key locally at MINI.

 

Possible but so rare. My dealer knows me very well and they wouldn't order a 2nd key for me without proof of ownership and ID. If another dealer sourced a key for that car then they are in big trouble.

 

Sorry to read about this. Are you the original owner? My first reaction if mine were to be stolen under similar circumstances, would be to think of just how many had previous access to the vin# and-or a key.
Best of luck with everything.

 

Thanks. I am the second owner of the car, I bought it in late 2012.

 

Oh, man, having a car stolen is awful......this is the first Mini I have ever heard of being stolen. I hope everything works out for you. What a great looking car.

 

Sorry to hear of this. If the MINI was stolen my guess is they have planned this for sometime. It doesn't sound like it was a last minute heist. They probably steaked the place out for sometime. One thing you might be able to do is see where there is all available survailence cameras around. Most places are more then happy to help!

 

Bummer. As someone pointed out above, it was probably stolen for the leather interior and wheels, and maybe airbags.

Many years ago a friend had a brand new 300ZX twin turbo. First some crackhead smashed his window to grab some change he'd left visible. Then while it was at the glass shop getting fixed some lowlife at the shop copied his key and his address from his registration. 2 days after getting it back from the glass shop it disappeared from his apartment. It turned up a week later with the leather interior completely stripped. His insurance bought him a replacement interior. The cops were completely uninterested in following the rather obvious trail back to the glass shop, their attitude was "nobody got hurt, you got your car back and you have insurance, we have bigger things to worry about."

Sorry to hear of your misfortune and good luck...

 

Been in a valet parking lot or garage lately? Got a maid or someone outside the family who would have access to either your key or the spare? In this age of cyber-theft, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that they can "clone" electronic key chips now.

 

I had a 2012 Clubman S that I bought from Carmax that was a repo. When I bought it it had 3 fobs with it. The original owner could have kept one of them, and I wouldn't have been the wiser. You mention you are the 2nd owner. Could you track down the original owner? Sounds to me that someone somewhere had a fob to that car!

I traded the 2012 Clubman after 4 months and bought my 2013 JCW R56!

 

The cars are nearly impossible to hot wire, to me everything points to an extra key or so, but the thing with MINIs are that each car is paired with its respective key, a MINI and its key won't be compatible with another MINI and its key, so there had to be another key for your car. Even if they jimmied the door they would still need the fob to start the car. Have you lost any keys at any time or possibly turned in a key to bmw? perhaps someone found one you threw away or someone in charge of disposing used keys at bmw picked yours up? Who knows, just picking the wildest possibilities here. I would literally being bawling my eyes out in my driveway if it happened. Hope you get your car back, who cares if its wheel are stripped and interior is gone, if you find it and it has a running engine, it would be a good day.

 

My money is someone put it on a flatbed and drove away. Probably for the parts; leather seats, engine, trans, etc are all expensive, as we well know..

 

you might take both your keys in to MINI and have them read them and see if they both match your car ...