The gang who stole your friends' car are called
THE BAD LADZ
Thanks to @n_palum for helping in chat
If you
Type it into imgur reversed (The name of the image if you click edit is 'I'm sometimes the last gear, sometimes the first' and the last gear is the gear to REVERSE [Thanks @Techidiot]) you get the following: https://i.stack.imgur.com/3Z0LA.png

Text:
YnJvd3NlcnMud3RmL3B1enpsZS5odG1s
Using Base64 decoder (thanks @n_palum) you get the following website:
http://browsers.wtf/puzzle.html
(The console output is 32543 [Thanks @KritixiLithos] which is the OP's user ID)
Which has
the word 'Of'
The tab name is
Bottom
Giving
Bottom Of 32543
At the bottom of the OP's profile (at least at the time, may be removed in future) is a barcode

which decodes to
ZALD ABD ETH
which is an anagram of
THE BAD LADZ
ALONE
. $\endgroup$