G Brown Loc: Sunny Bognor Regis West Sussex UK

The back seats of our old GC pull up and out - with wheel brace and some tools space. Could use that! alternatively buy a dog cage - most can be padlocked and a small cage should fit under the roll up boot cover (if you have one). Another way is to get some costco plastic bags and wrap your kit up like shopping! A couple of well used shopping bags hardly advertise anything worth nicking.

GraveyDave

What I do is put huge amounts of papers, dunkin donut bags, blankets, towels, and other garbage to make the vehicle look abused and worthless. When I had a van, I did the same thing and, because it was newer looking, someone tried to break the lock. All of my friends in NY who had nice SUV's or vans got them stolen with their equipment or broken into and their cameras stolen. I leave every dent and misfortune alone and only fix the things that make the car run right. My journalist friends would laugh and say that someday a thief would break in to my car an LEAVE a radio for me !

jliane Loc: Washington state

My camera gear is not real expensive but I do try and disguise it in my Jeep GC. I remove the SD cards from the cameras I'm not using, just in case.

cessnalvr Loc: West virginia

Maybe a snake catcher decal on the door and one or two cages on the seat with the doors open. I would probably govwith the coats and blankets heaped up covering your stuff

Sannye Loc: Oregon

Take two diaper bags and label the one with the camera gear "dirty."

SteveR Loc: Michigan

I have been reading all of the good suggestions that I am being given. Thanks to French for the link to the vault company. To answer Gpa-15, all of my gear is insured with State Farm with a rider to my homeowners' insurance. It covers everything under ever circumstance....including damage. If I were to drop my camera and lens causing damage, the repair or replacement would be covered. I have no doubt that were my gear to be stolen from my Jeep, S.F. would cover the loss.

SteveR Loc: Michigan

Carl...This suggestion was made previously, but is an excellent one.

SteveR Loc: Michigan

SteveR Loc: Michigan

After 11 years, the Jeep def. is Texas Pinstriped!!

DJO

Best answer yet. I have a large one in my studio bolted to the floor. Bolted from inside the box. Set up a rig (or have it done for you) so the female threads in your Jeep are permanent, preferably welded. Try using something like you see in the image attached.

Thread size: 3/8 - 16. O.A. length: 2 in. Cost: $0.99 each at your local home store. Concerned about temperature control? Styrofoam sheets, cut to size, same home store.

Done properly, the Job Box can be installed or removed in just a few minutes, only by you. Use it only when you need or want to. Say for Christmas shopping at the mall.

Welding not an option, at least not immediately? Use carriage bolts in the fastening holes (smooth, no tool options) with permanent LocTite or lock nuts to secure them.

Members should feel free to add suggestions or improvements

FRENCHY Loc: Stone Mountain , Ga

Well then, we are f....d !!!

rjriggins11 Loc: Colorado Springs, CO

The best deterrent I know of is a visible dashboard cam with a blinking light. Even a dumb junkie wouldn't mess around with that pointed in his or her direction.

bw79st Loc: New York City

I like the suggestion of the foam cooler and the baby gear carrier, but let me share experiences of combat parking in NYC in the 1980s. A blanket on the floor is a tipoff that something is under it. If there is nothing under it, you still have a shattered window. The foam cooler and baby carrier require the thief to think. You can't count on that. They will shatter the window anyway. I drove to Long Island City every day, parked on the street or in a lot, no difference. No place was safe. The best strategy was to leave nothing in the car, including in the glove compartment, and leave the doors unlocked with a window cranked down enough to still not let in rain. If there was no radio in the car they would jimmy the trunk to look for a pull out radio you may have stashed. Better to have a dealer radio than a nice new Blaupunkt so they wouldn't bother ripping it out. An empty hole was a signal you had a nice radio, there goes your trunk lock! A sign on the window - "Doors open, nothing inside" could help as long as they went to that side first. I had a window broken so they could steal an umbrella, in a manned parking lot! Life isn't like that in NYC anymore but the lessons were learned.

My brother-in-law never had anyone break into his car. The floor and seats were littered with stained baby bibs, magazines, newspapers and empty beer cans.

kb6kgx Loc: Simi Valley, CA

I learned this the hard way, as well. A week before our wedding, my fiancé (now, my ex-wife) wanted to spend the day at Disneyland. I always kept my photo backpack in the trunk of my car and NEVER had a problem for the almost 20 years I’d been doing that. THIS time, she said, “I used to live near there, I know where we can park and save the $6.00 parking fee!”. Yes, $6.00. This was 1994. It was literally across the street from Disneyland. Right by the corner, under a streetlight. What could go wrong, right?

She also said, “I don’t need my purse, I’ll just put in the trunk.” Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. Obviously we were being watched. At about 5:30pm, we had had enough and decided it was time to head home. As we’re about to cross the street to go to my car, I said, “Hmmmm… what’s all that broken glass around my car?”

The broken glass was from the small window on the rear passenger side. First thing I noticed was all the wires and cables from my ham radio and scanner that I had in the front. When we opened the trunk, my photo backpack was gone (Nikon FE2, 50mm f1.4, 105mm f2.5 and 300mm f4.5). And there was a business card from an Anaheim PD sergeant that was left on the windshield.

Apparently, since my ex-wife lived there, it had become a very bad gang area. WHO KNEW???? When we got to the police station to make the report and told the desk officer where we had been parked, he said, “You parked THERE????”

Wrapping this up, I know I said too much, but fortunately my homeowner’s insurance covered the loss. Unfortunately, when the check came from the insurance company, my ex-wife said that we had bills to pay and that I didn’t need to buy more toys. Instead, we got some cheap Minolta point-and-shoot.

Anyway, thanks for listening.

SteveR Loc: Michigan

Basically it's that way in Dallas. I worked at a library for awhile and as I was looking out the door I saw a pair of legs hanging out the driver's side window of a BMW. I went to the doorway, and the pipsqueak 10 yr. old lookout called to the perpetrator who climbed out of the car, looked me square in the face and held his screw drive menacingly and then poof....he and his buddy were gone in the wind. A couple of years later one of the staff members had her years old Honda stolen from the lot.