Hotwiring Cars is not necessarily done for illegal practices but also for other reasons. This article on Hotwiring Cars is written for the intent to educate you with the method to open a car when you have lost your keys or left the keys inside the car.
There are basically two types of cars in use today, The first one is the older types of cars (pre 1968. I think) and newer types of cars.
Hotwiring Older Cars:
These cars have the ignition switch built into the dash board. These cars can be hot wired in a number of ways depending on just how much you know about wiring. The fastest way is to run a wire from the positive pole on the battery to the positive side to the coil. The battery and the coil will be marked with a + sign. After connecting the wire you will need to jump the starter. On all Chrysler and GM cars, This is done from under the car. There will be one thick wire and two thin wires. Just use a screw driver and connect the big bolt holding the thich wire to the thin wire closes to the moter. Once these two touch, The starter will turn over and start the car.
On a Ford type car (and truck) there will be a Starter relay on the fender very close to the battery. Just follow the Positive cable till you see a round cylinder connected to it. Use the bare metal handles on a pair of pliers to connect the battery wire to the Small wire on the relay. Again, Once these connect, The moter will turn over. Now you know that Hotwiring Cars is not a tough thing.
Be sure to hook your wire to the battery first. Any sparks near the battery may cause the fumes coming from the battery to ignite.
BATTERIES WILL EXPLODE!!!!!
The under the dash board hot wire is in some ways harder but its better then being seen under the hood of someones car. There are 5 wires going into the ignition. The only one that remains the same color on all cars is the red one. This is the main hot wire for the whole ignition. The fastest way to know what is what is to remember that all the wires but one can be connected at one time. The first thing you want to find is the starter wire. cut and strip all the wires. The one at a time touch them to the red wire. When the starter turns over you have found it. Now connect all the other wires to the red one. This will turn on the ignition and all excesories. Then all you need to do it touch the starter wire to this mess of wires just long enough to start the car. To stop the engine, Just disconnect all the wires.
Hotwiring Newer Cars:
The newer type of cars have the ignition switch built into the steering column. This was done as an antitheft deterent. All they realy did was make it easier to steel.
With the ignition switch built into the steering column, The easiest and fastest was is to get (or build) what is known as a body puller. This nice tool is used in the body shops and can be bought in a parts store for about $15.00.
It was made to pull dents out of a car body with the help of a few holes drilled in it and pulling the dents out.
The body puller is made of three parts. A pipe with a handle on one and (also used as a stop). one sheet metal screw (Normaly welded to the pipe). And a weight. The weight is used to slide up and down the pipe to apply a pulling action.
All you need to do it screw the sheet metal screw into the ignition lock and slide the weight away fron the ignition to the handle. When the weight is suddenly stoped by the handle, The force will cause the sheet metal screw to remove the ignition lock from the steering column. (it may take 2 or 3 good hard blows to remove the lock)
Once the lock is removed, Insert a regular screw driver into the housing where the lock was. You will see a slot (almost like a screw). Once the screw driver is in, Just turn the screw driver clock wise and the starter will turn. If you wish to stop the moter, Just do the same but turn the screw driver counter clock wise. Its all just like using the key except we have removed the one item that only allows certin people to start it.
Now you know two different methods of Hotwiring Cars. So next time you forget your keys inside your car, you dont have to call a lock smith as you can hotwire the car on your own