Trends in Car Theft

Priuses aren't necessarily harder to steal. Almost all new cars have transponders in their keys (or key fobs) - and you can steal any car with a skid truck. Even my old school pickemuptruck cannot be started unless you have the "right" key, regardless of whether or not you remove and bypass the ignition switch assembly.

Cars become thief magnets for several reasons. Sometimes it's because they're ubiquitous enough to be harder to detect once you've nabbed them, which makes them harder to spot in the herd and more valuable for parts. Sometimes their value or rarity make them irresistible in its own right.

Priuses will probably never make the "ten most stolen cars" list, for the same reasons that they're not on the "ten most popular cars" list. They're still unique enough (outside the left coast) to stand out in a crowded street, and they're not blingy enough to be highly valuable for their parts, or highly desirable by the criminal element.

Maybe if gasoline gets expensive enough.....

 

Older toyota's are easy to steal, doors that are locked are easy to open and " jiggerlers" a smooth worn ignition key is jiggled into the ignition switch and it starts. In Chicago patrol officers in some districts were given these keys to bring back older toyotas found dumped all over after the use. Back in the day 90's.

 

Maybe a bit off topic, but one of my new co-workers stated that she drove her car through Kentucky and the car broke down on the highway. She told us she had to leave the car as she had no money to get it towed back to Indiana. She left a note on the car saying she would be back please do not tow. Police marked the car (she saw this or was told this not sure which) and said not to tow the car owner will be back. She went back to get the car and it was gone, no tow companies say they have her car. She tried to file a stolen car report and police said no can't it was an abandoned car after 72hrs. So she is now without a car, and collecting money at work to try and get another car, and has missed work several times due to lack of a car. Car was low value 3,000.00 and she had just bought it, not sure the type.

Sounds a bit off to me, can someone just take a car sitting on the highway, would police refuse to help locate or make a stolen car report, or is my new co-worker just making this up?

 

On top of the relatively poor door and ignition locking mechanisms on these cars, it's also improtatn to realize that the combined parts value of these cars is multiples of their running vehicle value. For example, a 97 honda accord is worth like 2 grand in good running condition, but the parts value of the car is like 5 grand. These cars are chop shop gold.

 

I may have found my answer;...Not sure but its kinda what I thought...abandoned car gets towed owner gets a chance to collect car...pays fines for storage and tow of car....

http://statutes.laws.com/kentucky/189-00/450

 

Why is a 97 so valuable? are they going for certian parts on these cars? I know around town recently we had people stealing catalytic converters off cars of all shapes and sizes. Just wondering what parts people are selling/trading on such old cars how are those parts so valuable?

I'm just curious because my Saturn 1995 was so low in kelly blue book value and it looked great, under 1000.00.... trade value was worse. On the upside It was never stolen, and it would have been easy to break into the car.

 

instead of stealing the whole car, thieves are stealing parts not bolted down such as tailgates. thieves are dumb enough to sell stolen tailgates on craigslist.

 

My old CJ-5 Jeep had the door hinges on the outside. Once I locked my keys in the car. I borrowed a monkey wrench and took the door off. Talk about easy to break into!

 

This might be informative:
http://autos.aol.com/article/wonder-why-car-thieves-like-your-1994-honda-accord/

Locks are only there to keep the honest people honest. You should know that.

 

Seems to me that the reason older cars attract more thieves attention is a combination of 2 things:

- ease of theft: fewer older cars came with alarms, have lock mechanisms that are more widely understood and have fewer non-mechanical parts in their locking mechanisms.

-ease of access: most thieves don't travel far from home to steal. Most thieves aren't living in great neighborhoods. Thus most of the cars they have ready access to are older cars.

Most cars being stolen probably don't end up in chop shops or any elaborate, well tooled operation. They end up ripped off and sold to unscrupulous scrappers or stripped of anything portable and left to be vandalized in an abandoned lot.

 

Back when I was installing alarms and remote starts, gen III Rams presented a problem because it had 2 starter wires. One of them is a normal 12V positive and a ground with 180 ohms resistor during crank. On top of it, it had a transponder key. When I read the most stolen vehicle list, one of the top 10 vehicles stolen was a gen III Dodge Ram. I'm thinking to myself how the hell do thieves hot wire those freaking Rams when I can't even hot wire it myself and I had 12 years of experience in hot wiring cars for my job.
I've seen steering lock bolts and they're almost like a mini dead bolt so I don't know how thieves get around that steering lock.
It's extremely easy to hot wire Hondas and Toyotas without transponder key. I think that's one of the reason why Accords and Camrys rank the highest stolen cars. Also the 88-94 era Accords and Camrys are the top selling sedans of its time. Demands for its parts are high.
I remember a customer locked her keys in her Acura Legend and had to call AAA. The tow truck driver came with slim jims. It took him less than a minute to get the door open.

 

I bought a new BMW back in 1996 and went shopping for an alarm. The sales guys at the big box stores were clueless. They knew that the alarm that cost $50 more was better, but they didn't know why. So I found an alarm shop in downtown Oakland. I figured that guy knew about alarms, and he did. He said I didn't need an alarm, and here's why:

First, he said my car was very difficult to steal. The key was coded and without the code, the fuel pump wouldn't operate. Second, the doors couldn't be opened with a slimjim, a thief would have to break the glass and crawl through the window. Three, he said car thieves knew that the blinking red light meant the radio was coded, and therefore useless when stolen.

He went on to explain that most car thefts were performed by professional rings that operated chop shops which tore down the cars and sold the parts, and that required cars that were in high demand. The BMW wasn't popular enough to justify a car theft ring, even if it was easy to steal.

Maybe if car thieves figure out how to defeat SKS, they might steal Prii for the batteries and other expensive parts, but Civic and other cars are still higher volume and thus more likely to be theft targets.

 

Prii are plenty; most common car in national capital area.

Most of the time cars are either stolen and taken apart for parts (that's why old cars more likely to be stolen), or to put in container and ship overseas where they cannot be tracked.

IIRC back in 1993 there were 8500 cars stolen in MD, 7500 of which were stolen in Baltimore. Baltimore is a big port city, so most of them end up going to south america or middle east IWG

 

I'd say that locks are there to make your house harder to break into, and your car harder to steal, than your neighbor's. A well-equipped, determined and competent thief, can break into any house or steal any car. But if your car takes 15 minutes to steal and can be tracked remotely, while your neighbor's takes 3 minutes and cannot be tracked, the choice is clear.

Honest people do not steal. Thieves will be deterred by whatever level of protection is beyond their comfort zone. Making a car harder to steal raises the bar, and reduces the number of thieves who will feel comfortable attempting the theft. Desperation makes a thief willing to push his comfort limits further. If he is addicted to an expensive substance, or his family is starving, he'll attempt thefts he would not otherwise. And honesty is not a constant. Circumstances can make a previously honest person turn dishonest, and vice versa.

 

My friend in Loganville had a new Corvette. His car was stolen by someone with a rollback. Due to the On Star and a bored local police department, they managed to locate his car in less than an hour. Of course, the fact that it was a bright red, Corvette probably made it stand out a bit more too...

 

My guess is that The Prius will never be leader among stolen vehicles.

This guess is made on the observation that when I was looking at them at dealerships? 3/4ths of the sales people had no idea how a Prius started and that was with the FOB...