Fake Car Stereo will Deter Thieves
26 Comments By Eran Abramson on July 8th, 2008 in DIY (Do It Yourself)
Back in High School, I was so excited when I purchased a cassette player with a removable faceplate. I worked hard to afford that car stereo and was happy about all of the features, sound, and options except how attractive it may have been to thieves. In the beginning, I removed the faceplate when I left my vehicle, but that didn’t last too long: who wants to carry their stereo’s faceplate with them? With the technology and amazing sound coming out of car stereos today, these items become even more attractive to car thieves, and a better way to deter them must be realized. How about the fake faceplate?
To find a car with a cassette player is very rare, and the chances that these same stereos would be stolen is pretty slim. Why not combine the practically obsolete technology to your current car stereo in order to decrease the chances of it being stolen. In other words, make your stereo uglier and less appealing.
A great Do It Yourself project was created that used an old cassette car stereo, half a physical cassette, and some ingenuity to build a faceplate to go over the car stereo, making it look worthless. You can make your own using the DIY direction at Instructables, which include instructions, explanations, and images.
Since you will be using an old stereo, I guess the cost would be decreased and wouldn’t matter much if you screw up along the way. Just save your worthy stereo deck.

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Related Tags: car alarm, car gadgets, car stereo, car stereo diy, car stereo theft, deter thieves, fak care stereo, fake car stereo












July 8th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
Honestly Dude,
Your car looks better with the cassette deck. Why didn’t you spring for a deck that actually matched your car? Crutchfield does all that work for you.
Jimmy
July 8th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
cheap-ass JVC is also theft deterant
July 8th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
Cool idea… I dig it.
July 8th, 2008 at 10:26 pm
Nice idea, let’s hope I find the old original stereo of my car…
July 8th, 2008 at 11:04 pm
Is that the soundtrack for Dirty Dancing? That’s music abuse.
July 8th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
Thieves dont care how cheap your stereo is. I have had multiple $50 road gear cd players stolen out of my cars.
Remember theft normally takes place at night and their goal is to get in and out as fast as they can.
Nice mod.
July 8th, 2008 at 11:36 pm
In all fairness, the Dirty Dancing soundtrack does contain “Be My Baby” by the Shirelles, and that’s pretty much the greatest song ever recorded.
July 9th, 2008 at 4:04 am
I thought this was hilarious, and blogged about it over on CarDomain. Great stuff.
July 9th, 2008 at 4:41 am
All my tapedeck ever bangs is “Ballin is a habit” by Lil’ flip.
I got a better stereo than that ugly ass thing tho
July 9th, 2008 at 6:37 am
what a wigger ^
July 9th, 2008 at 8:30 am
Hi Everyone, thank you so much for your feedback and comments.
I thought this was a creative idea of using old, useless products to hide newer, more valuable ones…practical and fairly cheap diy.
@John, thanks for the post at CarDomain.
July 9th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
[...] Prevent Car Stereo Theft [...]
July 14th, 2008 at 2:40 am
We used to have these in the 90’s – It looked like a knob type fm radio that fit over any DIN style tape deck – we didn’t own cd players back then – they cost $300, and skipped constantly.
August 2nd, 2008 at 3:23 am
@jimmyjames “cheap-ass JVC is also theft deterant”
My thoughts exactly.
August 16th, 2008 at 1:32 am
The fake one fits so much better in that seriously fugly car.
September 20th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
[...] car project is completely different that the car stereo installation project to deter thieves and is a huge change to the mobile computing we usually hear or read [...]
October 19th, 2008 at 5:43 am
I enjoyed reading your post. While searching for vehicle security products I am came across the enclosed link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzyGRu6M8sA
Hope everyone finds it helpful.
J
October 20th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
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October 24th, 2008 at 1:58 am
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January 6th, 2009 at 2:14 am
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February 2nd, 2009 at 4:43 pm
Yeah, the tape deck does look better. One time a thief stoled a clock and some change out of my car but left the tape deck
February 5th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
In today’s world…a tape deck is practically useless, so this may be the perfect solution to make a thief go to the next car.
April 13th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
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April 14th, 2009 at 7:13 am
[...] new car doesn’t defeat the actual purpose of buying a new car? Well, never mind, check the fake car stereo and Telsa coil Car Alarm as other anti-car-theft [...]
April 25th, 2009 at 8:32 pm
[...] This Xbox 360 gamer must not been able to be away from their video games for too long. With the Xbox 360 Theft, it is understandable to want it with you at all times, but what do you do when you arrive to your destination? Now someone needs to improve it like Anti-Theft Car Stereo. [...]
October 11th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
[...] in other innovative recycling design concepts? Check out the Fake Car Stereo which is used to deter thieves, the cool Space Invaders Art from Recycled Floppy Disks or the [...]