My partner went all “Burt Macklin, FBI” and paid £60 to activate the Seat app. You can honk the horn remotely from the app so Burt Macklin kept doing it at night to piss the thieves off. It just so happened that they hadn’t turned the GPS off when the car turned on we could track it. It was taken to a super dodgy estate of car garages about 10 mins away from us. We called the police and told them exactly where our car was - we weren’t overly impressed by the police response at this point so my partner caught an Uber down to meet the police (who were just wondering around aimlessly). My partner showed them the app, showed them the map and then honked the horn for them, where it beeped from the other side of the shutter. Then the police got a warrant, the garage owner came down, opened up and cooperated. He “had no idea” it was stolen, despite the clearly visible tape stuck on the number plate to alter the registration. He wasn’t arrested but I assume he’ll be charged with handling stolen goods if he doesn’t give up the name of the person who brought it to him. He handed over the keys and the police took it in for forensics to be done on the tape. They finished with it yesterday. Tomorrow the insurance are collecting it and changing the locks and replacing the keys. Then we’ll get it back!

The funniest part of the whole thing is what it was doing in the garage… literally 3 months after I got it I stupidly scraped the rear passenger side. It’s a motability car (I swap my disability benefits for a car on this scheme, a bit like a lease) and that damage would have meant I didn’t get the “good condition bonus” of £350 when I get my next car in 18 months. The thieves had bought it in to get the scratches fixed and the garage owner had started the job. The insurance will fix the damage when they replace the locks, all covered by the £100 excess I paid for the cover car! It was still a massive ball ache, and they stole other stuff from the car, but it could have been a lot worse!