ECM Theft Is Skyrocketing—Right here’s Tips on how to Keep Forward

This put up is a part of a sequence sponsored by IAT Insurance coverage Group.

Late at night time within the Fall of final yr, thieves stole 13 ECM items from a fleet of business vans in Chicago. Whereas cameras recorded the theft, no person checked the feed throughout the hour-long crime. Because of this, the thieves acquired away with roughly $100,000 of stolen items.

An ECM, or Digital Management Module, is a pc in a truck’s engine that screens and controls its transmission, braking, and different techniques obligatory for the truck’s fundamental operation. Vans received’t begin with out one and the prices are excessive to exchange. A brand new ECM can take as much as 30 hours of labor to put in and prices round $9,000 in supplies alone. The actual price of ECM theft should additionally embody misplaced income on account of downtime whereas the truck is out of fee. A scarcity of alternative ECMs solely provides to the issue.

ECM theft is rising in frequency nationwide, significantly in Freightliner vans, because it takes simply seven minutes to take away an ECM from beneath a Freightliner’s dashboard. Non-Freightliners’ ECMs are tougher to entry, however thieves have developed strategies to steal them as effectively.

Happily, ECM theft prevention is less complicated than you may count on. Taking the suitable precautions can doubtlessly save your corporation 1000’s of {dollars} in enterprise interruption and direct monetary loss.

Defending your corporation from ECM theft

Keep a step forward of ECM thieves by defending your fleet with these 4 measures:

1. Safe your automobiles

Think about including these fundamental safety measures to your fleet:

• Lock your automobiles when not in use, particularly in a single day.
• Park your vans in a fashion that makes accessing the cab tougher. As an example, park near a wall or one other automobile.
• Rent safety for the vacations when extra vans are idle and on web site. Thieves typically goal industrial vans over holidays after they know they received’t be in use with much less on-site safety.
• Set up cameras alerting your corporation to exercise in your yard throughout non-operating hours. Rent somebody to observe it throughout these high-risk durations and alert authorities after they detect suspicious habits.
• Maintain parked automobiles in well-lit areas with restricted entry to unauthorized events. Think about putting in fences round your lot and utilizing a gated entry system.

2. Use anti-theft bolts

4 bolts safe Freightliner ECMs. Thieves look forward to finding these normal bolts and are available ready with the suitable instruments for simple elimination. Catch them off guard through the use of an alternate anti-theft bolt.

Anti-theft bolts are sometimes made to order. Commonplace instruments received’t work on them, so it’s tougher for thieves to steal ECMS secured by them.

3. Contain legislation enforcement

Maintain legislation enforcement within the loop if ECM theft happens. The police can examine and doubtlessly get well the stolen ECMs when you alert them rapidly sufficient. It additionally helps in monitoring patterns of those thefts, which permits legislation enforcement to higher allocate assets towards stopping them.

Phrase will get round rapidly amongst thieves. In the event that they know your corporation is reporting each incident of ECM theft, they may transfer on to a better goal.

4. Name Freightliner

Right here’s one other potential deterrent in opposition to future crimes when you’ve been hit by ECM thieves: Freightliner can remotely disable your ECMs to allow them to’t be bought. Name 1-800-385-4357 to report the theft. All you want is the truck’s VIN.

Remotely disabling the ECM renders it nonfunctional. This makes it ineffective to the thief and reduces the possibilities of them focusing on your fleet once more.

ASK A LOSS CONTROL REPRESENTATIVE

Have a query on tips on how to mitigate danger? E mail [email protected] for an opportunity to see your query answered in a future weblog.

By Tom MacCallum

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Fraud