I am going to disagree with most opinions expressed here against wheel locks. I am very much in favor of them, and I am a recent convert after having been ambivalent about them for years. I recently ran into a guy (lets call him Kent) that I was acquaintances with since elementary school. We lived in the same general area, but were in different social groups. About 10 years ago I ran into him again and we got to talking, and it turns out he did a stint in prison for car theft. Not just any car theft , but industrial scale car theft, chop shops, back room deals with shady junk yards, insurance fraud. Pretty much anything you can think of in the realm of car and motorcycle theft. He was so successful that he bought into a small chain of junk yards and used them as a cover to move product.
We talked briefly about wheel locks, steering wheel clubs, home security, all sorts of topics. His take on wheel locks is that they are a good thing: "Wheel locks are easy to defeat if you have the right tools. But they take extra time and preparation to defeat, and they cause noise. It is difficult to defeat wheel locks without drawing attention to yourself. The act of removing wheel locks without the correct key is unusual, it draws attention. The banging and vibration sometimes set off car alarms. " He had a lot of opinions on what things are worth the time and money, and what things are worthless. His opinion is that spending $25-30 on a decent set of wheel locks is a cheap deterrent, " its very cost effective , it makes me do extra work. If I am planning on stealing the car then its just a nuisance , but on the off chance I am just trying to boost the rims it makes me think twice.". It cuts down on amateurs and crimes of opportunity.
He had a lot of other cool stories- if I remember some more details I might post some extra stuff. I mentioned I had a motorcycle stolen from my house about 15 years ago, and he asked me a few questions (make, model, condition, location), then said "it could have been just some average Joe, but I would bet was probably John Doe down in Smallville (fictitious name)- that's his specialty as the engines have a lot of demand". I expressed an interest in following up and he said not to bother, "he got killed execution style a few years ago, down in Florida." In the end " Kent " was caught by a combination of the scale of his enterprise, and mistakes made by junior members of his team. An insurance investigator was able to put some stats together, worked with local police and develop some solid leads and eventually his whole organization was rounded up. Turns out the insurance investigator also went to school with us.