Guide Transmission Thwarts Thieves’ Try To Steal A Lady’s (Kia) Soul

Yearly fewer new automobiles provide the choice of a guide transmissionand thus increasingly more individuals do not know the way to drive them. As Fox 17 stories, that labored in favor of a lady in Grand Rapids, Michigan, who credit her stick shift for thwarting an try to steal her soul. Her Kia Soul, that’s.

On Monday morning, Lila Burns-Weerstra discovered her automobile’s window damaged and the steering column busted open, and posted photos of them on the We Are Westsiders Fb group. “Two teenage boys broke into my automobile at 2:58 am final evening and tried to steal it, could not get it going I am assuming as a result of it is a guide,” she wrote. “My two neighbors have entrance porch cameras and caught video, they had been trying round into the opposite avenue parked automobiles.” We can’t be like Volkswagen and questionably promote a guide transmission as a safety functionhowever she could have some extent right here.

I do need to surprise why the would-be thieves did not discover that the automobile was a guide earlier than breaking in. Perhaps it is as a result of they’ve been offered in lower than 1% of latest automobiles since 2021, based on the 2024 EPA Automotive Developments Report. In the event that they assumed that no matter they broke into was some type of automated, it was a statistically secure assumption, even when us lovers hate to confess it.

We have seen manuals thwart thieves earlier than, however what’s distinctive about this case is that it is not the primary time this has occurred to her on this automobile. Burns-Weerstra informed Fox 17 that she discovered it in the identical situation three summers in the past, damaged into however with nothing stolen.

“I’ve briefly thought-about switching to an automated after having to drive on the freeway to work each single day,” she mentioned. “However now I in all probability am going to stay with manuals.”

Sadly, she remains to be on the hook for repairs to her window, steering column, and ignition swap. Even when insurance coverage covers it (and it does not at all times cowl Kias), not having her automobile whereas it is being mounted remains to be inconvenient.

In response to GM Authority, a Cadillac survey in 2020 revealed that 66% of American drivers know the way to drive a guide transmission. That quantity appears a bit excessive to me, since only some individuals I do know apart from my spouse, mates who race, and auto journalists understand how. In the event you’ve ever wished to study, you would possibly wish to decide one up when you nonetheless can. If you do not have a pal who can train you, there may be even a college for it. It is perhaps a dying artwork kind, however so is Morse code, and I understand how to do this, too.