The other morning, I was browsing the online news bulletin that arrives daily from my son’s University. This day’s lead headline caught my eye due to the mentioning of cars before the usual spate of self-congratulatory “news” about giant lasers, notable faculty achievements, and dining hall hours.
Hummmmm. This reminded me that I’d seen a similar bulletin last semester about the prevalence of catalytic converter thefts from cars on campus. That previous announcement, I now recall, had inspired a rather mind-bending thread on the parents’ Facebook group where Facebook people were a) trying to explain to each other what “catalytic converters” are and b) enthusiastically recommending various companies in the University area that could install anti-theft devices on their kids’ cars to protect these mysterious parts. I think it was that conversation, with all of the abundant vigor, insight and reading comprehension skills exhibited by the same group of people who can spend several weeks discussing and recommending “cupcake delivery services” to other desperate parents of lonely (and presumably sugar-deprived) students, that sort of turned me away from the whole subject.
But now that University Public Safety had decided to publish a whole FAQ on Korean vehicle thefts, I figured that this may warrant a quick read. One thing lead to another, and here I am thinking more broadly about current trends in auto theft.
So, it turns out that 12 years worth of Kias and nearly that many years of Hyundais manufactured as recently as the 2022 model year don’t have imobilizers built into their ignition circuits? Good grief. Who would have known?
It appears that in this case yoots across the Internet learned about this Hyundai/Kia “feature” via Tiktok (of course they did). Having tired of other Darwin Award-worthy acts such as challenging each other to eat laundry detergent and stick metal coins in electrical sockets, the yoots of America have now moved on to unauthorized joy riding in some of the least expensive and joyless cars on American roads.
While it should be possible (with those potential fightin’ words) to start a spirited discussion here about the vehicular merits of the bulk of Kia and Hyundai models from the past decade, I rather think a significant part of what fascinates the general public about the current Kia and Hyundai “Challenges” relates to the surprise of learning that anyone would actually want to steal these generally low-end cars.
If that’s true, it’s because the general public probably hasn’t spent much time reviewing years worth of data related to auto theft statistics.
Since most auto theft in the US – and I would assume this is the case in other countries as well – ultimately involves interaction with the insurance industry, turns out that the go-to data source for information related to auto theft is the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB). NCIB’s readily available on-line data sources about the prevalence of insurance coverage of losses due to theft offer an excellent immersion into simple descriptive statistics. A quick review of NCIB data reveals some interesting factoids as well as lessons on why numbers do not always mean what they appear to mean. I’d love to use this data to teach a high school level consumer mathematics course.
| State Name | 2019 Thefts | 2020 Thefts | 2019 Est Pop | 2020 Est Pop | 2019 Rate | 2020 Rate | 2019 Rank | 2020 Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| District of Columbia | 2,857 | 4,013 | 705,749 | 712,816 | 404.82 | 562.98 | 3 | 1 |
| Colorado | 21,299 | 29,162 | 5,758,736 | 5,807,719 | 369.86 | 502.12 | 6 | 2 |
| California | 160,377 | 187,094 | 39,512,223 | 39,368,078 | 405.89 | 475.24 | 2 | 3 |
| Missouri | 24,792 | 27,905 | 6,137,428 | 6,151,548 | 403.95 | 453.63 | 4 | 4 |
| New Mexico | 9,391 | 8,977 | 2,096,829 | 2,106,319 | 447.87 | 426.19 | 1 | 5 |
| Oregon | 15,253 | 16,333 | 4,217,737 | 4,241,507 | 361.64 | 385.08 | 7 | 6 |
| Oklahoma | 13,468 | 14,780 | 3,956,971 | 3,980,783 | 340.36 | 371.28 | 8 | 7 |
| Washington | 25,210 | 28,348 | 7,614,893 | 7,693,612 | 331.06 | 368.46 | 9 | 8 |
| Nevada | 12,169 | 11,481 | 3,080,156 | 3,138,259 | 395.08 | 365.84 | 5 | 9 |
| Kansas | 8,287 | 9,478 | 2,913,314 | 2,913,805 | 284.45 | 325.28 | 13 | 10 |
| Texas | 85,253 | 93,521 | 28,995,881 | 29,360,759 | 294.02 | 318.52 | 12 | 11 |
| South Carolina | 16,372 | 16,609 | 5,148,714 | 5,218,040 | 317.98 | 318.30 | 11 | 12 |
| Tennessee | 19,129 | 20,865 | 6,829,174 | 6,886,834 | 280.11 | 302.97 | 14 | 13 |
| Minnesota | 12,640 | 16,726 | 5,639,632 | 5,657,342 | 224.13 | 295.65 | 22 | 14 |
| Arkansas | 8,185 | 8,822 | 3,017,804 | 3,030,522 | 271.22 | 291.10 | 15 | 15 |
| Utah | 6,505 | 9,396 | 3,205,958 | 3,249,879 | 202.90 | 289.12 | 28 | 16 |
| Louisiana | 11,458 | 13,055 | 4,648,794 | 4,645,318 | 246.47 | 281.04 | 19 | 17 |
| Alaska | 2,385 | 1,978 | 731,545 | 731,158 | 326.02 | 270.53 | 10 | 18 |
| Kentucky | 9,521 | 11,541 | 4,467,673 | 4,477,251 | 213.11 | 257.77 | 25 | 19 |
| Montana | 2,313 | 2,751 | 1,068,778 | 1,080,577 | 216.42 | 254.59 | 23 | 20 |
| Arizona | 18,624 | 18,785 | 7,278,717 | 7,421,401 | 255.87 | 253.12 | 16 | 21 |
| Nebraska | 4,539 | 4,841 | 1,934,408 | 1,937,552 | 234.65 | 249.85 | 20 | 22 |
| Georgia | 26,907 | 25,968 | 10,617,423 | 10,710,017 | 253.42 | 242.46 | 17 | 23 |
| South Dakota | 1,659 | 2,163 | 884,659 | 892,717 | 187.53 | 242.29 | 34 | 24 |
| Connecticut | 5,944 | 8,541 | 3,565,287 | 3,557,006 | 166.72 | 240.12 | 38 | 25 |
| Indiana | 15,630 | 16,126 | 6,732,219 | 6,754,953 | 232.17 | 238.73 | 21 | 26 |
| Alabama | 12,252 | 11,336 | 4,903,185 | 4,921,532 | 249.88 | 230.33 | 18 | 27 |
| Mississippi | 5,910 | 6,720 | 2,976,149 | 2,966,786 | 198.58 | 226.51 | 30 | 28 |
| Illinois | 25,198 | 28,422 | 12,671,821 | 12,587,530 | 198.85 | 225.79 | 29 | 29 |
| North Dakota | 1,441 | 1,657 | 762,062 | 765,309 | 189.09 | 216.51 | 33 | 30 |
| Ohio | 22,602 | 25,271 | 11,689,100 | 11,693,217 | 193.36 | 216.12 | 31 | 31 |
| North Carolina | 21,321 | 22,638 | 10,488,084 | 10,600,823 | 203.29 | 213.55 | 27 | 32 |
| Florida | 46,465 | 44,940 | 21,477,737 | 21,733,312 | 216.34 | 206.78 | 24 | 33 |
| Maryland | 12,702 | 12,231 | 6,045,680 | 6,055,802 | 210.10 | 201.97 | 26 | 34 |
| Iowa | 5,673 | 6,378 | 3,155,070 | 3,163,561 | 179.81 | 201.61 | 37 | 35 |
| Hawaii | 2,694 | 2,723 | 1,415,872 | 1,407,006 | 190.27 | 193.53 | 32 | 36 |
| Michigan | 18,089 | 19,105 | 9,986,857 | 9,966,555 | 181.13 | 191.69 | 36 | 37 |
| Delaware | 1,790 | 1,875 | 973,764 | 986,809 | 183.82 | 190.01 | 35 | 38 |
| Wisconsin | 7,965 | 9,863 | 5,822,434 | 5,832,655 | 136.80 | 169.10 | 42 | 39 |
| Rhode Island | 1,519 | 1,643 | 1,059,361 | 1,057,125 | 143.39 | 155.42 | 40 | 40 |
| West Virginia | 2,747 | 2,606 | 1,792,147 | 1,784,787 | 153.28 | 146.01 | 39 | 41 |
| Virginia | 10,791 | 11,891 | 8,535,519 | 8,590,563 | 126.42 | 138.42 | 43 | 42 |
| New Jersey | 12,386 | 12,168 | 8,882,190 | 8,882,371 | 139.45 | 136.99 | 41 | 43 |
| Wyoming | 638 | 771 | 578,759 | 582,328 | 110.24 | 132.40 | 45 | 44 |
| Pennsylvania | 13,826 | 15,524 | 12,801,989 | 12,783,254 | 108.00 | 121.44 | 46 | 45 |
| New York | 14,257 | 20,700 | 19,453,561 | 19,336,776 | 73.29 | 107.05 | 49 | 46 |
| Idaho | 1,673 | 1,911 | 1,787,065 | 1,826,913 | 93.62 | 104.60 | 47 | 47 |
| Massachusetts | 6,202 | 7,010 | 6,892,503 | 6,893,574 | 89.98 | 101.69 | 48 | 48 |
| Puerto Rico | 4,005 | 2,111 | 3,193,694 | 3,159,343 | 125.40 | 66.82 | 44 | 49 |
| Vermont | 377 | 395 | 623,989 | 623,347 | 60.42 | 63.37 | 50 | 50 |
| New Hampshire | 716 | 738 | 1,359,711 | 1,366,275 | 52.66 | 54.02 | 51 | 51 |
| Maine | 613 | 709 | 1,344,212 | 1,350,141 | 45.60 | 52.51 | 52 | 52 |
| 794,019 | 880,595 |
It’s fun to slice and dice the NCIB data on theft rates by year (that’s the chart above, and you can find more years of comparison data here). There are a few outstanding points that emerge from examining the data, and in particular from taking that “15,000 foot” (not too low and yet not too high) view of data that I often advocate. First, the list of those states that have the highest auto theft rates tend to be fairly consistent. Colorado and California are consistently in the top 5 of states with the most auto thefts per person. The theft rate in NCIB data is expressed as a function of state population – or as the number of thefts per 100,oo0 population (note that this is human population and not the number of cars registered in the state). I have no idea why these two states rank so much higher than other states with large populations such as Texas (generally below the top 10) and Florida (generally below the top quarter of states). Likewise, it’s hard to explain why DC (if you count it as a “state” as NCIB does) ranks so high in thefts. Its per person rate was the highest in the nation in 2020, and therefore higher than nearly all other states with similar populations, including some rather urban states such as Delaware and Rhode Island. Yep, people are apparently relatively wild about auto theft in DC.
OK…so what kinds of cars were stolen in DC in 2020?
| Rank | Model | Year |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Toyota Camry | 2020 |
| 2 | Honda Accord | 2016 |
| 3 | Toyota Corolla | 2016 |
| 4 | Honda Civic | 2016 |
| 5 | Nissan Altima | 2015 |
| 6 | Toyota Rav4 | 2018 |
| 7 | Hyundai Elantra | 2018 |
| 8 | Hyundai Sonata | 2011 |
| 9 | Jeep Cherokee/Grand Cherokee | 2015 |
| 10 | Chevrolet Malibu | 2020 |
That list looks to me more like what I see in the “Standard” or “Compact” category on the Avis website than anything approaching a list of cars that one might risk prison time in order to acquire. Just like on Avis, I too probably go for the Malibu (and hope for an upgrade at the counter) if I were browsing for a car to steal. This, by the way, is akin to my rule of “go for the steak” when confronted with questionable quality food in some of the sketchy backwater places where my domestic U.S. business travel has taken me. I mean, putting aside vegan sensibilities for the moment, where the steak is concerned there’s only one thing to cook…what are the chances that this could be screwed up to the point where after eating it I’d be too sick to make it to tomorrow’s meeting? A rental Malibu is a safe steak in a world of potential automotive gastric disturbances. The full 2020 list of the top 10 vehicles stolen in each state is available here. My point is that the most commonly stolen cars seem to inevitably be pretty dull, yet practical, choices.
When looking at the most commonly-stolen vehicles nationwide, DC’s top-10 list gets expanded to include the full-size pickups from GM and Ford. Again, this makes sense as these are also among the most common vehicles in the country, and are also likely the most “needed”…if you make the assumption (as I do for the most part) that auto theft is largely the product of poor choices related to fulfilling need versus simply sheer stupidity (as would mostly be the case with eating laundry detergent).
The fact that run of the mill Toyotas are perennial favorites as stolen cars is not at all a new phenomena. In fact, of the two people I know who have had more than one run-in with car thieves, one had a Toyota and the other had two different Honda products stolen.
Here’s a car that is so sufficiently without following that I had a very difficult time finding a picture of one (winding up with this from the Toyota archives). My friend’s 1984 Corolla was frankly a scary-dull piece of automotive dreck. Yet, it was repeatedly stolen when he lived in NYC in the mid-to-late 1980s. Each time, the car was recovered…generally within the same borough. I believe that he was relieved when it was recovered after the third theft in too damaged a condition to warrant continuing to drive it.
All things considered then, today’s fad for stealing 10 year old Hyundais is not at all surprising.
What’s equally easy to understand, and even more depressing to me, is the prevalence of stealing just the catalytic converters off of cars. It’s said that the converters from hybrids are most desirable as they have the highest percentage of desirable metals within them. Likewise, the converters from SUVs and crossovers are most often stolen, presumably because they are easier to access and don’t even involve needing to jack the car up to chop them off. Great. Some jerk is going total my 2006 Highlander Hybrid by cutting off its converter. The whole vehicle is probably worth less than what it would cost to replace the catalyst. That would stink, although the chance of it happening seems to be growing steadily.
Getting back to the University Department of Public Safety bulletin that got me started this morning, the linked FAQ stated that the best deterrent to theft if one had a Hyundai/Kia with no interlock (i.e., most Hyundais and Kias from the past dozen years) was the good old fashioned “Club”, pictured at the top of this post. Geeze, I have two of those things in my basement from back in the bad-old-days in the 1980s when car theft seemed to be more of a pressing issue. Only it turns out that it wasn’t as pressing an issue as it is now. Times are strange.
I highly doubt that my Clubs have anything to do with the fact that I personally have never had a vehicle outright stolen. I have had cars broken into on NYC streets on multiple occasions back in the 80s and 90s. In fact, I came to assume that back in those days getting your window broken so that someone could riffle around inside your car was about a common as a parking ticket (it was for me and many urban-dwellers I knew). Likewise, whole vehicle theft was simply assumed as inevitable. I steadfastly refused to park on the street overnight when visiting friends in the City. I’ll probably always think of NYC that way. And yet, according to NICB data, NY is now one of the safest places in the country (see the above table for 2019 and 2020 data) in terms of auto theft. Go figure.
This, by the way, connects to the issue of “car alarms”…which were so much more common in the 80s and 90s than they are now. Nevertheless, there’s more auto theft now than there was at the time when I used to seriously think about attacking cars with a baseball bat in order to silence their alarms that regularly went off repeatedly in the middle of the night. I guess that’s another article altogether.
Alright CC community…what’s been your experience over time with auto theft? Have you had one – or more – stolen? Is this something that concerns you in your daily life? What’s going on with Colorado and DC? Oh, and if you know any scared Kia drivers, send them my way…I’ll start looking for the keys to my Clubs. They’ve got to be around here someplace.
I had one just like the one in the picture for my ‘83 Cutlass Supreme. Was soooo easy to break in, hot wire, and gone in 60 seconds or less.
Once replaced with a Toyota Camry, the bar sat in the back seat for even. Not sure where the bar is today. Most Gen Z wouldn’t know what it is unless attached to a steering wheel
Look in the basement, like mine and seemingly those of a few other readers, that’s probably where it is.
Come to think of it, I do believe that several members of Gen Z have wondered out loud what that red metal thing is I have sitting on a shelf.
My 1977 Datsun pickup was stolen before it’s second birthday (it was rear-ended before it’s first). When they found it every panel and window was smashed in. And the heater core was gone. Nothing else, just the heater core. I have always felt “are you kidding me? They stole a less than two year old vehicle FOR THE HEATER CORE?”
That’s a good one. Typically heater cores are such a PITA to remove that no one takes them out even when they need replacement. Clamping off the coolant hoses at the firewall generally gets you by except in the most extreme climates 😉
Have had wheels/tires and wheel covers stolen, but thus far not my entire car thankfully. From what I understand, a manual transmission is an effective theft deterrent, at least in the US where even thieves don’t know how to drive them anymore. Every two years or so I read a story where a carjacker is thwarted by the unexpected presence of a stick shift, and occasionally caught as they suspiciously lurch around in their stolen car.
Yes, I’ve heard that as well and since half of the cars in my house have manuals, I’m thankful. I can probably put the Clubs on the other 2 should I care.
I would hazard a guess (that’s all it is) that probably fewer than 10% of drivers under the age of 30 actually know how to drive a standard. And then when you figure that only a very small % of those drivers want to steal cars … and then combine that with the fact that manual transmission vehicles (particularly in those 10-most-desirable model/categories) make up such a tiny % of available cars, I suppose that the number of car thieves who would have the opportunity to or skills to drive away a standard car is next to nothing.
Odds turn out to be better protection than the Club. 🙂
See below, I’m pretty certain the only reason that the thief didn’t make off with my F250 is because it has a manual transmission and the thief didn’t know that the clutch pedal needed to be depressed for the starter to work.
I had the ashtray stolen from TR4 when I parked it with the top down. I looked all over campus for another TR but found none. Then someone suggested it might of been a non-smoking prank. I never could find a replacement for it, or another use for that hole in the dash.
Is it possible it was just a kleptomaniac? Some people take something (if its quick and easy) just for the thrill of doing so, and not because there’s any utility in the object they stole.
I first read about the Hyundai/Kia theft issue a month or two ago – caught my eye because we own one of those Kias. And I thought what you did: Geez, our generic, silver minivan is now a prime target for joyriding??
Like many other people, we used a Club once, and it’s now somewhere in the basement. After a while, it seemed that car thefts had faded into memory, and the hassle of using The Club wasn’t worth it. But a few years ago, car-related crimes began to creep back around here. Vandalism and theft of parts are now very common – buffeted in part by the fact that many local jurisdictions no longer even attempt to prosecute “minor” property crimes. And it sure seems that theft has risen too. Even before the recent Hyundai/Kia news, my wife raised the prospect of using the Club once again. We haven’t done it yet, though. I’d hate to go back to that.
Regarding the “boring” cars on those Top 10 lists, I presume that most are stolen for parts. And as far as joyriding (such as w/ the TikTok-inspired thefts), in a world where even minivans have 250+ horsepower, yoots can create more than their fair share of havoc even with the dullest cars imaginable.
Regarding Washington, DC, what’s particularly interesting to me is that the NCIB figures measure thefts by per capita of population, and I’m sure that DC’s rates of actual vehicle ownership (i.e., ratio of cars to people) are much lower than most (or all) states. So measured on a per vehicle scale, DC’s theft rates would be even more distressing. I wonder how those DC theft figures compare to other big cities?
https://www.dchealthmatters.org/indicators/index/view?indicatorId=281&localeId=130951
https://www.insurance.com/auto-insurance/claims/top-cities-ranked-for-car-thefts.html
Yeah, I can’t explain Bakersfield either…but it seems to have a bit of a hold on top theft city.
All I can think of in relation to Bakersfield is:
As Buck says…Hey, you don’t know me but you don’t like me….
(btw, you can catch a nice set of shots of Buck’s 1971 Catalina with the custom gun-motif at about 2:14 in that video. Great, great song, IMO)
I had attempted auto thefts subverted by my Ford’s anti-theft system. I had a 1968 Ford Country Squire when I was living in Pittsburgh in the 1970s. The neutral safety switch had shifted, so the only way to start the car was to reach over the steering wheel and pull the shift lever up while turning the ignition switch. The car was easy to steal as one only needed a screwdriver to pop open the vent window and pull on the door handle to get in. The thieves would then jimmy off the ignition key tumbler and insert the screwdriver into the ignition switch to start the car, except it wouldn’t start without knowing the starting procedure. This happened to me three times and each time I would look and find the ignition tumbler on the floor, insert it back into the switch, and proceed with using the car as usual without any other damage.
I’ve got a story with a lesson. Be weary of leaving your key with an unfamiliar service facility. Bought new tires for my ’90 VW Jetta GLI, fun car, loaded including BBS wheels. A week or two later the car was stolen from my apartment complex in North Jersey, this was circa ’92 when the Club was at peak popularity and yes, I employed the Club.
The car was later found on Long Island with new tires but regular Jetta wheels, no more BBS’s. No sign of forced entry or damaged ignition. No Club either.
The car was completely fine, save a rather gross film on the inside back door window, as though someone fell asleep against it. Such an invasion, I felt the need to sterilize the car before feeling comfortable with it.
About 6 months later it was stolen again from the same apartment complex but this time not to be found. Picked up a ’93 Passat GLX with the 6. Smooth power and manual trans. What a car.
My son lives in a major west coast city and drives a Hyundai that’s been targeted (an Elantra GT wagon, which is actually a pretty neat little inexpensive economy car). So I dug out my old Club – purchased in the late 1980’s and unused for the past 25 years – and shipped it out to him. He uses it regularly.
The Club may not be the most effective device ever invented, but if it causes a potential thief to move on to the next car rather than deal with cutting the steering wheel or breaking the Club, it was worth the $10 shipping cost.
When I went to college in Baltimore in the early 1990’s I took a used Club from unclaimed personal property at my Dad’s repo lot. I didn’t have the key, I’d just stick it on the wheel, lock the doors, and leave my Mazda pickup in some of the WORST neighborhoods imaginable. I don’t know if it was the fake security or the fact that the truck was a stick, but nobody ever messed with my Mazda.
Someone once stole the lugs nuts off our Jeep Cherokee. They came and stole four out of the five lug nuts. I started to drive it when it felt really off before noticing. Could have been really bad. I had to walk about thirty minutes to the parts store to buy new ones. They came back that evening and stole an additional one for each wheel to have a full set presumably.
These were just regular lug nuts? Geeze.
This seems a bit similar to thefts of the tire valve stem covers for MINIs…but that was because MINI was silly enough to sell sets of those emblazoned with Union Jacks. Who wouldn’t want to steal those?
Bog standard Jeep lug nuts. Nothing special. I figured they must own the same/similar vehicle and needed a new set. It was weird. I mean who endangers a stranger’s life over used lug nuts?
Someone whose critical thinking skills deficit leads them to removing something from someone else’s vehicle to begin with?
When I was transferred to Memphis in the late 80s I didn’t realize right away that I was living in an area notable for car thefts. At my apartment I had my Pontiac J2000 hatchback and my father’s 79 Mercury Zephyr. I worked pretty early in the morning at a nearby Navy base and I wonder if I had walked out to get in my car a few minutes sooner, would I have been a victim of mugging….or worse. When I walked up to get in the Pontiac the driver’s side window was smashed with the pieces lying on the driver’s seat. But it wasn’t until I went to insert the key in the ignition slot that I saw that someone had nearly gotten my car. The underside of the dash and steering column had been crudely ripped open. If they had ever gotten the car started the thief would have been confronted with a crude, 4 cylinder powered car with a manual transmission and badly chattering clutch/pilot bearing.
Excellent. Yes, I wonder how many times thieves don’t exactly get what they’re expecting.
Which of course is the perfect opportunity to insert the famous Trunk Monkey commercial…
Never had a car stolen yet, but did have our unlocked Mercury Topaz go untouched when the Caravan right next to it get stolen 🙂
Particularly Toyotas get stolen around here because they are exported all around the world. A Canadian consumer affairs show did an episode where they went car shopping in Nigeria and found Canadian stolen cars:
Doug, thanks for sharing that video! It’s so disheartening to see just how easy it is to steal even a modern car that has locks, imobilizers, etc.
This does confirm what I have suspected, which is that many of these “top 10” stolen cars are stolen for resale overseas and not simply for parts that are sold here in the US. Ugh.
My brother had a ’77 Chevy panel van with zero options. No PS or A/C, 3 on tree, I6. It was black, and he’d can-sprayed the roof, sliding door, and hood flat white to drive in the dessert one summer, but hadn’t stopped the rust. In the late 80s, someone stole it and later brought it back. It would get stuck in first if you didn’t downshift through second gear. You could open the hood and unstick it easily, but the thief didn’t know that.
Well, I guess if they went to the trouble to bring it back….no harm, no foul?
They broke the steering column ignition to get it started.
I once had a pickup truck. Visited a friend in East Los Angeles (who had gang connections, but otherwise a nice guy) and unwittingly left things in the open cargo bed that were predictably stolen. Upon saying goodbye to my friend, some guys approached me, returned the stuff to me, saying they didn’t know I was the gang member’s friend.
Also used to have a 1982 Buick Regal 4-door. For some reason the tail light lenses were frequently stolen. One day I mentioned to my ELA friend about the stolen tail lights. A few days later I found a box containing left and right tail light lenses on my doorstep. No notes, nada. I’m sure somewhere in Los Angeles another Buick Regal was missing their tail lights.
Many have opined that manual transmissions are theft-deterrents. Wish I could retrofit a modern car with an updated Model T Ford type setup.
I guess, as they say, Membership Has Its Privileges.
Great stories!
Stolen taillights reminds me that I once read that one of the hardest parts to source for old, classic cars are OEM taillight lenses. I think it was in connection with Jay Leno having a state-of-the-art 3D printer and that was one of the primary parts the printer was used to create since the OEM versions were typically made of unobtainium.
This story goes back to Thanksgiving eve. 1963. I was a kid living on a high-security Air Force base in GA, Dad was base commander. Late that day I had finished washing Mom’s 1963 T-Bird & Dad’s late model Olds 98 convertible, blue w/white interior. I had left the top down on the conv., parked in the driveway, as I knew Dad would most likely take me out for an ice-cream run in the early evening. Sure enough, the sunset came, time for an ice-cream run, convertible missing.. So MP’s were called. You would think top secret documents had been stolen because of the number of MP vehicles, with lights flashing at our house.
Picture this: Base Commanders blue conv., stolen in front of his on-base house. The Olds had obvious officers tags on the bumpers, only one-way on/off the base at night through a guarded check-point, and most MP’s knew what the Base Commanders autos looked like. Yes, keys were in the car,
In about 1/2-hour the conv. was found parked near a warehouse on base. Since I had just washed the conv. hours earlier, the only fingerprints found on the car were my young self and the thief.. Thief turned out to be a very young enlisted guy who only wanted to see his girlfriend off-base.
Young thief could have been court martialed, served time, discharged. instead, Dad had him transferred to a remote base somewhere in cold Alaska where he would not want to steal another convertible. Dad saved his ass.
Side note: Getting all that sticky black finger print stuff off the white interior took my young self a day to clean up..
Later in life, I lived in Manhattan twice, West Village. First time I stored my auto in a locked lot in Brooklyn, Italian neighborhood, many NYC police kept their personal autos there. Second time I lived in the West Village, keep my car stored / garaged in Jersey City. Easy subway to get the car as needed, Also, less insurance because my auto insured in NJ Legal yes.
That’s a great story and kudos to your dad for having the wisdom for not letting a kid throw away his life over a stupid and likely impulsive act. At least not on your dad’s watch.
I wonder if your father checked to see if that was the end of his life of crime or the beginning. After a winter in Alaska, he might have preferred the stockade in Georgia.
Obviously Elmendorf AFB. Have a patient who enlisted in the Air Force in 1960 and was stationed at a missile base in Arizona. To pass time the guys would put a snake, gila monster, and desert tarantula into a small enclosure for amusement and betting. Once there wa s a disagreement of sorts and things got out of hand. He threw somethning which missed the target but hit a Sgt. vehicle. That evening he found himself on a plane to Elmendorf to patrol the base perimeter at night. His story of coming face to face with a bull moose, in the dark, was hilarious. The only other duty he had was to clean up the flight line after an airmen step into a propeller. Why, because he worked in a Fresno meat packing plant before enlisting to get away.
I also bought such a club thing in the late 90s to secure our Alfa Spider, which had to spend its nights on public street car parks in our neighbourhood.
Months later, I realised that nobody was interested in the Spider and I spared myself the evening assembly of this club thing.
In the noughties, the Alfa was sometimes parked top-down and unlocked at the side of the road (absolutely forbidden in Germoney), but we would have had to be ready to offer a lot of money at that point to convince a car thief to shortlist our car.
Apart from the random thefts for a spontaneous joyride of some idiots, there are two categories of stolen cars: anonymous and invisible enough to be used for another criminal offence (eyewitness during questioning: “The car was grey and had four wheels”.), or expensive enough to be sold in undamaged condition to a “new owner in another country”.
The latter reminds me of a story from the late 80s. Mercedes-Benz launched the 190 and the car had more popularity than MB could deliver. This gave some “businessmen” the idea to satisfy the demand of have-want customers with vehicles from still-owners. Within months, the 190 shot into the top 10 of the most stolen vehicles.
One morning, a 190 was parked in the port of Genoa. The car had been stolen the night before in southern Germany and taken by the thieves that night for shipment across the Alps.
As the sun rose in the port of Genoa, the thieves realised what vehicle they had stolen: a 190 with lavish equipment and, what was much worse, an elaborate paint job.
The thieves simply left the vehicle there. So the vehicle stood there in the harbour for several days, as no one dared to take possession of it – everyone thought “it belongs to the other family”.
Never had a car actually stolen, but over the years my two pickup trucks got rifled. The big item lost was the radar detector which I habitually/foolishly left in plain sight on the visor. My second truck because of the neighborhood would lose all the loose change (I used to keep a tin of quarters (laundromat/ car wash) under the passenger seat–first time they took the change and left the tin–after that they’d take the tin). I figured out to stop leaving change in my trucks. My Boston gf (early 1990s) had serial misfortunes with her VW Golf getting ransacked for their radios, and leaving $$$ thousands in damaged dashboards–3 times in two years before I met her.
The only time I ever see The Club on a car these days are worthy curbside classics that are a minimum of 4 decades old. I never see them on modern cars.
I’ve had much worse misfortunes with house break-ins, 5 serious ones to date.
I think I’ve written about this before, but I’ve had similar experiences with my Scouts. None of the door locks work, and the convertible tops are on them 1/2 of the year. The radio in my first truck was a $25 “Road Gear” model I got at Wal Mart which nobody was dumb enough to try and steal. They would rifle the glove box but anything with stealing was locked safely away in a Tuffy console between the seats. You’d need dynamite to get into one of them. And, both were/are manuals.
I have never had a vehicle stolen, however I did have a mud flap, of all the stupid things removed from my truck.
I had left it with some other trucks while we were off recreating for an overnight stay. A few days later, washing the mud off it I noticed one of the factory mudflaps with the stainless strip at the bottom looked different. It was worn through from rubbing on a tire, had no stainless strip, and was held on with two small lag bolts. Someone not only took my mudflap, they replaced with a crappier version of the same thing.
I love these kinds of stories! It somehow seems that any thief who goes to this sort of almost prank-like trouble really should not be considered a thief at all.
This seems like a less substantial version of the activity that many of us (speaking for myself…) have engaged in around moving people’s cars just to mess with the owners.
Of course sometimes that “moving” involves placing the car…like a cow…on the upper floors of a multi-floor building.
At the risk of giving everyone an idea of just how old I am, back when I was a young kid, my parents had a 1970 Buick LaSabre that my mother would drive to downtown Minneapolis and park in a surface lot (before the days of big ramps) near her office. This lot had the drivers leave the car with the keys so the attendant would then park the car. Apparently they would just place the keys on the flipped up visor. The thieves knew this and would help themselves to cars from this lot all the time. When my Mom returned later that day to get the car, it was gone. The parking lot attendant just kind of shrugged and offered no help to find out what happened. She finally called the police and they told her cars were taken from this lot almost daily. The car was eventually found idling with the doors all open in an alley in a residential area of Minneapolis. The police determined that it was used in a bank robbery. We got it back several days later after it had been dusted for fingerprints. Except for the dust everywhere and just being rather messy, the car was undamaged. Needless to say, my mother never used that parking lot again. My Dad made us kids clean and wash the car.
After the ceremony in CT, my brother’s wedding night was at a nice hotel in Rye NY before they took a plane to Hawaii, and my aunt & I would pick up the car the next day on our way south. The parking valet left his car keys on the seat of another car that then left for upstate. Fortunately, they had some of their luggage but needed something from the car and discovered the loss early. This was right after they discovered her mother had forgotten to make their hotel reservation.
I’d completely covered the car (Turbo Sunbird that had been mine) with suggestive puns on famous book titles (they’re both big readers), for example “The Sisters carry Matt off,” and other drivers had used their high beams to read them on the highway to Rye. They weren’t happy campers that night (or the next morning when he called me), but they’re still married 34 years later.
“I have no idea why these two states rank so much higher than other states with large populations such as Texas (generally below the top 10) and Florida (generally below the top quarter of states).”
I know. Legal and readily available drugs. Quick way to get money to buy what is easy to find – steal cars or the cats from them. Note that Oregon and Washington are also among the top ten.
Within the last year there has been a spate of thefts from hotels and lots near DIA. One of them was my neighbor’s 15 year old Tahoe. It ended up in Sterling, Colorado with ignition and driver door lock damaged. It had been left running and when found it had run out of fuel. Plenty of Colorado media stories last summer about the danger of leaving your car at or near DIA.
I keep forgetting about the Hyundai/Kia theft thing, but am occasionally reminded (like now) that my boring gray minivan is one of the likely targets. Am I going to cause a problem for myself by admitting in public that I have never had a vehicle stolen? I am hoping the CC Effect doesn’t work this way.
When I was in early high school, a friend’s family had an early 1970 Ford Falcon (the last of the real ones). It was parked outside overnight at a mechanic’s shop when someone stole it. For some reason the oil had been drained out of the engine – I don’t recall why. The thieves got a surprise when the oil-less engine seized up, and my friend’s dad got a new/rebuilt short block from his insurance company.
I’m kind of hoping that by talking about it here, it’s indicative that maybe the whole Hyundai/Kia thing has jumped the shark and perhaps the kids will go back to challenges such as eating soap or falling off of milk crates or such.
Is it just the angle I’m reading from, or do you extra super loathe Korean cars?
Let’s just say that I’ve never had a good experience in one or with one, despite the rental car industry’s insistence that I keep attempting to do so.
That said, what I meant by “thing” above is more about the “thing” involving tiktok-inspired auto theft and not about Hyundai or Kia specifically. 🙂
Hyundai-Kia’s US and Canadian subsidiaries are autonomous, warring fiefdoms. If you’re from the “wrong” country or you move across the border with your car…they won’t honour your warranty, they won’t cut you a key, they won’t perform needed modifications, they won’t give you the time of day. Your car is machina non grata with them. (As a Hyundai owner and a US-to-Canada transplant…I know.)
What does that have to do with the thefts? Simple: In Canada, an electronic immobilizer has been required equipment on all cars since September 2007. The company deliberately omitted the device from subsequent US models to thwart grey-market imports of US cars into Canada…which was happening quite a lot around 2007, when the Loonie was riding strong. Sigh.
I’ve only had one car stolen, my ’97 Ford Explorer. This was the oldest vehicle in my neighborhood for blocks around, and uninsured for theft. I parked it on the street a half block away from home. This vehicle was too old to have a chip key, though my ’96 Mustang did. I returned from a two week vacation and drove by the spot that I had parked it, and asked my Wife,”Where did the Explorer go?” I immediately reported it to the police dept. I wanted to have a record of the theft in case the thief used the vehicle in a crime, or it was involved in a collision. I wanted to protect myself from any potential liability.
Surprisingly, the local police found the truck a week later.They called me from the field but I couldn’t beat the tow to the location, so the truck was impounded. I drove to the tow yard later and was told that the car couldn’t be released until office working hours. I showed up as soon as the yard opened, and they still charged me for two days of storage, which was 300 dollars!
The thief probably chose my truck because it didn’t have a chip key, which is indicated by a flashing red light on the dash. He broke the driver’s window with a piece of concrete paver, which also damaged the windshield post trim and put a chip in my once pristine dash. They never even cleaned out the broken glass, just put a towel over it. The thief used the truck to go to work in some construction job. It was found abandoned with a box full of sewer drain pipe and vent duct fittings.
I installed a new lock cylinder, and replaced the interior trim, and the broken window courtesy of Pick and Pull. I was thankful that the thief didn’t crash the car and kill someone, or get me involved in a felony investigation. After this I used two anti theft locks that hooked on the steering wheel and the brake pedal.
This episode set me back 500 bucks, and most of that cost came from the storage fee rip off.
“The thief used the truck to go to work in some construction job. It was found abandoned with a box full of sewer drain pipe and vent duct fittings.”
They weren’t working construction, they were stealing from construction sites. Your truck was stolen as a means to rob tools and materials from sites. It was those tools and materials – and not your truck – that was the real prize.
Likely the items remaining was stuff the thieves failed to sell
Speaking of thieves…
Sadly, yeah. Impound fees are no joke. Many of the cars my dad had in the repo lot went to auction when the storage fees eclipsed the value of the car. Stranger still was when someone would show up after six months had passed to reclaim a clapped-out 1987 Hyundai with 90k miles on the odometer. Dad only took cash.
_NEVER_ underestimate the Customer’s stupidity .
They’d bring in their junkheap for a major repair than vanish for a year or so, then come asking “? where’s my car ?” .
‘I _SOLD_ it you moron’ .
-Nate
I’ve got a couple, all involving a Super Duty, which are easy to steal and desirable.
A few years ago I had the license plates stolen off my truck, in my driveway. 2 or 3 months later I got a call from the police who had pulled over the also white Ford truck for something unrelated.
The next time involving the same truck was someone who attempted to steal it again from my driveway. They popped the door lock and had forced the lock cylinder to the point it would start the vehicle. The only reason I can see that they didn’t get away with it is the fact that it is a manual transmission and I don’t think they noticed it had a clutch pedal and or knew that it needed to be depressed to make the starter operate. I did spend the money for a set of billet door handles to make it harder to get into the truck and I really should install an alarm.
The other story told to me by a friend was a neighbor of his who’s Super Duty was successfully stolen. The Police did find it a week or so later. When it he went to pick it up he found that there were some carpenter’s tools in the truck. A few days later he got a call from the person who’s tools were in the truck asking for them back, because he needed them for work.
? They still make and sell the Club ? .
Who knew .
I too had two of them, one failed and God alone knows where the other one is .
Here in Southern California there’s a specific socio – economic group that’s stealing the catalytic converters, thing gardeners, they mostly know how to drive stick shifts because cost you know .
I fear for this in my little trucklet ~ it sits up high like a truck ought so the cat. can be removed in less than one minute ~ apparently they use a hydraulic cutter that snips the tailpipe in seconds .
I love Buck Owens and have his older music on CD’s .
In 1972 or so some jerk stole the two day old left front tire off my 1960 VW Beetle, he replaced it with an inflated but bald one and even replaced my hub cap .
-Nate
Exactly what I meant about the fear that I have about someone stealing the converter from my Highlander. Easy-peasy.
I’ve seen these things – https://catshield.com/ . But I kind of have my doubts that this will offer much more resistance to a thief than the Club does/did for those who really want to take a car. Sure, it’ll put off the casual thief, but unlike the Club the thief won’t know it’s on the vehicle until they get under there, when I think armed with a Sawzall, that extra piece of metal won’t slow much of anyone down. The Club’s primary deterrent value was that it was big and red and very obvious.
And absolutely many thumbs up for Buck!
There was an attempt to steal my 1980 Mustang 3 door turbo, but they couldnt open the door. But sadly that caused the door lock to be ruined. Getting into the car from then on was a pain in the a**.
I’m glad that nobody tried to steal my Firebird, it didnt need a key to start and I often forgot to lock the doors. Later I replaced the steering column which gave me a little more peace at night.
On the other hand, I think that nobody would have succeeded in trying to steal my Chevelle. I can’t quite remember the routine to start it but it was complicated and involved a hammer, a bit of swearing and praying to the gods that the tired 250 wanted to run because its not easy to fire up an old car running on propane!
Mazda Demio is the hot favourite for thieves here because being a JDM Mazda 2 they arent fitted with immobilizers mostly its teens stealing cars for ram raids when I was in OZ it was Subarus that were most stolen no imobilizer and if you score the right model they go ok, in fact NSW Police got some WRXs for in town pursuit not freeway chasing though the V8 Commodores were a lot faster.
Last summer, thieves literally smashed through the side of my shop building (using heavy equipment) and stole vehicles, tools and supplies. None were insured due to the stunning incompetence of my insurance broker. I knew my property was under – insured but my broker neglected to make my requested changes.
The sense of loss and violation has been deeply upsetting. Locked buildings, stout walls and doors mean nothing for determined thieves.
The police (OPP) tell me south-western Ontario has seen a devastating increase in rural property crime in the last 18 months. There’s daily break – ins, targeting all kinds of power and construction equipment, farm equipment, recreational equipment, pick up trucks, trailers, tools, supplies etc.
There’s been plenty of police raids in the region. The bad guys are found with loads of stolen property, drugs, illegal firearms etc. Some are caught in the act of breaking in and stealing stuff. Often many bad guys are repeat offenders, found with outstanding warrants, probation violations etc
All are arrested. The next day they appear in court on charges. Inevitably the judge sets a future court date and releases them on their own recognizance. Yes, they get out of jail the very next day to go back to stealing, drug dealing, and wrecking peoples property and livelihood. And the court date? Inevitably they don’t show up, as they are too busy being criminals. A warrant is put out for them. If or when they are caught again, they’re out the next day – again – and “failure to appear” is added to the long list of charges.
Forgive me if I’m bitter. I’m sure a Crown attorney may have a reason why the system must operate like this but it makes no sense as the bad guys seemingly operate brazenly and with impunity. I am deeply, disappointed with the Ontario judicial system at present. Even when citizens and police catch the perpetrators, the courts fail to actually follow through.
Leaving aside the rotating-door legal nonsystem: did you put those requested changes in writing? If so, and the broker didn’t make them, that strikes me as fertile lawsuit territory.
In 1969 my friend had his tan VW Beetle stolen. We were at university and it was only a couple of years old, so it was better than the cars most of us drove. I thought it was an odd car to steal, but the police said that they were so common that it would never be spotted or recovered, which was true. He replaced it with a Corolla which, at the time, was not as ubiquitous.
Up until the early ’60s, Chevies had an ignition switch that covered part of the key head. The key could be removed in the OFF position, but the car could still be started without the key.. It was necessary to turn the key one notch further to the LOCK position.
Many neglected this step. It was common to see Chevies with their ignition left unlocked in our small town. More than a few young teens would take an unlocked Chevy for a late night spin and return it to the original parking spot before morning minus a few gallons of gas. Most were never caught.
Not sayin’ how I know. . .
Never had a car stolen (knock on Dinoc) but have had a few things stolen off or from inside my cars. Perhaps the most valuable was the Passport radar detector stolen off the dash of our Vanagon. Don’t ask why I had a radar detector in a Vanagon …
In the late ‘70’s several friends bought used Vega GT wheel trim rings to snap onto the used Corvair wide steelies that were the hot setup for Datsun 510’s whose owners couldn’t afford or didn’t want alloys. A few years later the trim rings off my own Vega disappeared one night. And it was from the same apartment complex parking that the Kerker 4-into-1 header was stolen off my Honda CB400F. Fortunately I still had the stock pipe.
I live in San Francisco, and both I and several people I know have had pre-immobilizer cars stolen and found some weeks later. As far as I can tell, they’re just being used for transport. I detailed the theft and recovery of my 1995 Subaru Legacy in a COAL installment – https://www.curbsideclassic.com/cars-of-a-lifetime/coal-1995-subaru-legacy-and-briefly-a-1997/
I’ve been privy to two car thefts. One in 2000 when my mother would sometimes spend overnight at my apartment. One morning walked out and her car was missing from the back lot. Called police, it was a 92 Accord. and it was recovered the next day when police stopped a young woman driving the car 8 miles north. She said her boyfriend gave it to her. Well you are under arrest and the car came back fine. Still have that car with low miles.
Now you know I like the Mazda 626 between 1986-1992, preferably 88-92. My wife’s Sable had an issue with a possible rod knock and couldn’t be used. A 90 626 sedan was seen for sale with around 120,000 miles in 2015. Clear coat peeling all over, interior not bad but no tears, and ran decently. Got it for $1200. I then improved upon it’s driving quite a bit and good mileage for an auto. She did have one fender bender when she got sleepy and hit a F-350 in the rear. F-350 walked away while she punctured the radiator, creased to hood nicely, and gashed the bumper cover. I straightened the radiator support, replace the radiator, improved the hood a little, and got a perfect hood and bumper cover from Pick n Pull.
One night she parks at a friends place where it is all apartments. I don’t like these locations as they are ripe for mischief. The car is stolen Thursday night despite the interlock. Call the police, describe, and they will let me know. Found 2:00 pm the next day but turn it over to the impound lot and inform me at 5:00 pm and they are closed for the weekend. By the time I could call I was told it was at $750 to get my car back. No insurance given it’s age obviously. Tow and four days storage. Want to guess what I told them? Was the interlock system broken now. So I dragged it out for over a month before sending them the title and telling them to choke on it. They then sold the car. How do I know? A month later there is a voice mail on my office phone asking me if I can repair the brakes after they found something in the glove box. Ah, NO! Oh, still have the nice hood and bumper cover which will replace the bumper cover on my 626 after painting.
Interesting, I thought car theft was a thing of the past due to smart keys etc. I haven’t owned anything between ’87 and ’97, but all I’ve owned since and including ’97 have had chip keys. I’ve heard in the ’70s all you needed was a slide hammer and screwdriver to steal any GM car, but I thought things had progressed much since then.
At the same time, has any car theft since Reagan was pres ever been foiled by a stock horn alarm? Those systems mostly seem crude, simple, sensitive and will go off if someone walks by and farts. With no attention paid by anyone other than to say STFU. My 4WD truck, a 2003 Infiniti QX4 has had issues with said alarm system and one time the local cops drove by, with the horn honking, lights flashing, the whole thing, I’ve got the hood up and I’m under it and didn’t even slow down. I do live in a middle-middle small town but low crime area, and as pissed off as I was at the truck I would surely have been in their face, so I’m not wanting more response. But to me it shows how much good those f’ing noisemakers do. I’ve seen lots of people driving along, horn honking, lights flashing and nobody pays any attention.
But at the end of the day, 3 pedals for the win!
When my workplace got a Transit Connect with a reefer unit it came with two keys. At some point I noticed that there seemed to be only one and I asked about it. They didn’t know where the other one had gone and I suggested they might want to change the locks. Not easy or cheap with the ‘smart’ keys it came with so they didn’t bother. A few months later the van was stolen. It was recovered seemingly no worse for wear a couple of weeks later, and they had the remaining key ‘recoded’, so it was the same key but the missing key would no longer work. We assumed that was how it was stolen since there was no sign of forced entry or other damage. I suggested getting a club or installing a hidden switch but was ignored. Sure enough the van was stolen again. Again it was recovered, and it turns out the key wasn’t in fact recoded. This time it was actually done and they got a club for the steering wheel. Some time later I got in it to find that someone had sawed through the steering wheel to remove the club. Apparently the old key would still open the door but no longer start the van.
I have no idea about the US but here in the EU many stolen cars – unless taken apart for spares – find their way to the Wild East. This might have slowed down a bit due to the Russia-Ukraine war but there are still other routes (e.g., over Turkey) for the supply chain to remain in operation. The below is from the German Automobile Club. As can be imagined, the “winners” circle includes the local brands but weirdly stolen Hyundais numbers have been growing strongly, as have those of Renaults (also a not particularly desirable brand in the German-speaking countries). I have no explanation for this other than what was mentioned already. The most stolen – percentage wise (compared with vehicle total numbers) – vehicles are Land Rovers, which I get (check out previous model Defender prices. And Range Rovers were always popular with certain types out East).
As for me, I avoided having a vehicle stolen so far because as an everyday car for many years I only had older (not collectors) vehicles which were not worth the risk or bother. And my Mazda 3 is now 7 years old and not the kind of Mazda “popular” with thieves…
https://www.adac.de/rund-ums-fahrzeug/autokatalog/marken-modelle/auto/autodiebstahl-statistik/#:~:text=W%C3%A4hrend%20bei%20der%20Diebstahlquote%20(Diebst%C3%A4hle,Mini%20bei%20Autodieben%20am%20begehrtesten.
I had an Olds Aurora that was stolen out of my driveway. It had been in a repair shop for an estimate a week earlier. I reported it to the local police, who inferred that I must have left the keys in it. Whereupon, I tossed the ring of keys (both sets) on the counter and said “Yeah, right”. They told me that auto theft wasn’t a priority and sure enough a week later, received a letter from them that they weren’t going to spend any time looking for it and if I retrieved it, to let them know.
I often wonder if someone at the repair shop had made a duplicate key and then came over later to take the car. This was a time when scrap car prices were rising fast and the Olds was a large car with many aluminum parts. The state database still shows the title in my name, so I’m sure it went straight to the crusher (no title needed around here).
Classy response by the local police, first thought is to blame the victim. Sounds like auto theft there is effectively legal.
One 3 day weekend, I left my 96 Saturn SL2 at my boat shop and drove my Ranger home. When I returned Monday, the passenger side front window was smashed. Nothing was stolen, as I don’t keep valuables in my rigs. If they even went thru the glove box, they closed it. Weird part is, the woman I got the car from, who bought it new, also had that same window smashed! And Saturn doors are easy to work on, you pull the outer skin off to get in the door. I had it fixed in no time.
Back in the bad old days, there were many stories of cars getting their windows smashed when the doors were in fact unlocked. I guess that thieves are not always the best problem-solvers when it comes to breaking and entering.
As mentioned : auto thieves are not brain surgeons .
Many years ago I had a nice 1982 VW Rabbit convertible . I loaned it to my elder brother and some woman ran a stop sign and bashed in the left front fender and jumped out yelling “!! IDIOT ! DIDN’T YOU SEE I WASN’T GOING TO STOP ?!” .
Because this is Southern California and it’s a rag top, I didn’t have any radio in it, the $1,500 German top was maybe one month old and I was worried so I wrote on the body shop’s repair order ” DO NOT LOCK CAR !” in bold print and stuck a bunch of random wires in the gaping DIN 1 radio hole .
Of course, that night some mental midget slashed the top right over the driver’s door and the shop replaced my good top with a $350 vinyl one .
As far as I’m concerned they can put thieves underneath the jail, they’ll never be missed .
-Nate
In the early nineties I was on a jury for a guy named Derek who got caught in a stolen car, with stolen plates, filled with stolen merchandise. He had done this just after being released from jail for his previous offense. What sealed the deal for his conviction were his fingerprints on the BACK of the stolen plates. Since then Derek has been doing the grand tour of the New York prison system, with stops in Auburn, Downstate(twice), Elmira(twice), Coxsackie, and Five Points(currently). He just loves stealing cars and other stuff.
When I lived in Maryland, I had plates which had some red fingerprints on the back of the plate. Red was the color of the paint used on the numbers and the envelope said the plates were made in a MD state prison. Hmmmmmm….
‘derek’ perfectly shows the difference between stupid and ignorant .
-Nate
This is an “I wish” auto theft story that never happened.
I had a new 1979 Country Sedan as a company car. That car can best be described as a total piece of junk. Absolutely worthless. Just a matter of when, not if, it would break down. I never went anywhere I shouldn’t be fearing a break down.
I worked for a large company situated in the wrong part of town. Cars were regularly stolen off the lots.
On several occasions a second set of keys were left in the ignition while I was in the office.
The amazing thing is nobody ever stole it!
Maybe they thought it was a bait car. Who knows?
PS: I found it five years later in a junk yard.
Six out of the top ten states either border or are within a day’s drive of Mexico.
Catcon thefts are rampant in Denver. Unfortunately my garage was built for a Model A so my Sienna won’t fit in it. I’ve got it behind a locked, 42″ chain link fence, illuminated at night. Not great, but better than street parking.
It’s weird hearing cars with loud exhaust, like the old days when mufflers rotted out. A lot of people can’t pony up $1K to get their liability-insurance-only car’s cat replaced but still have to get to work/kids to school.
Auto theft is big business in SoCal and I’ve lost two cars to it. I’ve also had to replace two batteries (before hoods were locked), a smashed door glass, and a damaged trunk lock due to theft.
My 1996 Altima GLE with every option had only 16K on the odo when it was stolen. It had an alarm system and a Club – neither proved to be of any value and I’ve never used a Club again. At the time I was told by the police that stolen cars in this area went to: 1) a chop shop, 2) across the border, or 3) a freighter bound for overseas. Mine ended up in a chop shop as many parts were engraved by the dealer where it was purchased and started showing up around the area. Turns out this car was a target of a theft ring operating out of another dealership where the car had been towed a few days before because of a failed alternator.
I think ignition immobilizer keys have helped a lot since that time though they would not have in my case. And yes, a big problem here now is catalytic converter thefts. Priuses and Corollas are targets as friends with these models can attest.
A little late here, but I’ve got a couple, one from long ago and one from earlier this year.
Before she was married, my aunt would take annual vacations with friends at Wildwood, NJ. Over Labor Day weekend in 1960, teenagers stole her 1959 Chevy Bel Air, then wrecked and totaled it. They simply asked the desk clerk at her motel for the keys; this was back when your room and car keys could be stored for convenience in the cubbies behind the front desk.
To get home, she was given a rental Corvair, which she hated. I’ve mentioned this before — this is the aunt who decided to move up to Oldsmobile for her next car, but the 1960 models were too long to fit in the garage. She had to wait about a month for the 1961s to come out; these were downsized sufficiently to fit. The new car was a beautiful Dynamic 88 bubbletop.
Earlier this year, my older son’s 2006 Prius had its catalytic converter stolen while parked overnight on the seemingly safe street in front of his house in the Long Island suburbs of NYC (near Mineola for those familiar with the area). At least 3 other cars in his neighborhood, all Hondas, also had their cats stolen that night.
He said there was no other damage to the car, although the thieves left a pile of sharp metal shavings and fragments under the car from the rushed removal. Even so, the total damage estimate was $3125, most of it likely for the converter itself.
I knew of the risk for Prius owners, but assumed his neighborhood was safe enough. Live and learn. https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/catalytic-converters-make-2004-09-toyota-prius-unlikely-theft-target
Back in the 1990s I met someone who told me a wild story about his classic ’65 Mustang Hardtop being stolen. He was initially heartbroken, as most car theft victims are, and never really expected to see his car again when he received a phone call from a police department in some little town. As I recall, the victim lived in San Diego and the car was stopped by police on one of the Interstates between L.A. and San Francisco. The police wanted him to come and get his car, which he did. The car seemed in fine shape and there was no damage to it and he was overjoyed to have it back. Then he opened the trunk and found it crammed full of women’s wigs, loungerie, and “exotic” clothing. He went back to the police station to ask if they wanted the clothing back and if there was anything unusual about the thieves.
No, they didn’t want the clothes back and yes, there were several unusual things about the thieves. There were three of them and they were sex workers, apparently on their way to San Francisco. They were two women and a man, although they didn’t realize that one of them was a man until they performed a strip search. According to one of the officers, he looked just like “Joey Heatherton.”
Considering some of the theft and recovery stories I’ve heard, one could do worse than having their car stolen by a band of desperate drag queens. 🙂
In 1984, I worked for my uncle at a print shop in Norristown, PA. Every day, he would go out on his route with deliveries. One afternoon, I got an emergency call to pick him up…at one of his stops, he left the keys in the ignition of his 1978 Rabbit (diesel), and it was gone when he returned to it.
Fast forward a couple months later, he started getting parking tickets in the mail from the West Oak Lane area of Philadelphia. It gave an address, so he and I ventured out to see. There was the car, parked along the street, and we saw a police van near the end of the block. We spoke to the officers who said they were on a ‘stakeout’ and couldn’t do anything except let the air out of the tires so it would be immobilized (this is a reported stolen car we’re talking about here). We were then told that we’d have to come back with our own tow service to retrieve the car.
Next day, we came back with a tow service, and as he was hooking up the car, a lady came out the front door yelling “WHAT YOU DOIN’ WITH THAT CAR?’ My uncle said ‘This is my car that was stolen…you know anything about it?’ She paused, then said ‘No, but I know it’s been parked there…’, then she jumped back into her row home and slammed the door. The tow truck driver said under his breath ‘She knows…’.
Got the Rabbit back to my uncle’s mechanic who determined the reason it had been parked so long…it had run low on fuel, and they tried putting regular gas into it (a diesel, remember?). The mechanic purged the fuel system, and it was back on the road, sans my uncles tool box but with a ‘pager’ under the seat…he kept that as a souvenir.
Oh, and after a few more months, we finally got the Philadelphia Parking Authority to stop trying to collect on the parking tickets on a reported STOLEN car…we were told that the auto theft division didn’t share information with the parking authority. How convenient.
Those types of stories weren’t entirely unheard-of in Philadelphia. I remember friends of my parents had their mid-80s Cadillac deVille stolen from their house in Northeast Philadelphia. It was recovered about 5 or 6 years later elsewhere in Philly – had been sold to someone who kept it as his own car, and even added pinstripe monograms with his own initials.
Balto, that’s a great story!
Perhaps “diesel” is the next best theft deterrent to “manual transmission”. Given that those 2 things went together generally in diesel Rabbits (I know, I had one), perhaps that’s why diesel Rabbits never made it to the NICB Top 10.
This goes back to the 1980s. We got an Audi 4000 Quattro and since car stereo theft was in the news, we put the factory Blaupunkt radio in a Bensi Box removable housing and kept it in the houses or at least locked in the trunk. As an aside the Bensi Box, removable chassis and removable face plates deserve a CC feature. Then the car was stolen in NYC, with the radio in the trunk and recovered a few weeks later, sans radio with the trunk lock punched and with used needles on the floor. So we repaired the damage, replaced the stereo with a removable Kenwood and a couple of years later, the radio is stolen and the trunk lock punched. After that the trunk got punched one more time before the car succumbed to fuel injection failure and rust in 93-94.
The other “fun” tale happened a few years ago in Portland to a friend. He owned a 2000 Honda Civic CE stripper that was so bare bones it didn’t even have a radio, just the factory block off plate. In 2018 or so it was stolen and recovered a few weeks later with the full “Fast & Furious” treatment, big wheels with low profile tires, cheap stereo with big speakers, a wing, and even some underglow. Since returning the almost 20 year old base Civic to stock was more than it was worth his insurance totaled it and he bought a Prius C, which was almost immediately T-boned and totaled, so he bought another Prius C which survives to this day.
Totally! I still have a Kenwood with the removable face-plate (and the special plastic box that looked like something you’d keep a pair of eyeglasses in that the face plate was supposed to reside in when not installed on the car).
The things we put up with…
Kind of the opposite, but I had a friend who in the late 90’s was moving from my town to another 1000 miles away. His wife and kids had already moved, but to fulfill his obligations to his employer he stayed in town a couple months without them, driving his wife’s ’79 Toyota pickup. He didn’t plan on taking the truck with them, and in lieu of renting a car the 2 months he used her pickup, and just parked it (with the keys in it) at the end of his term.
It wasn’t much of a vehicle, but it was his wife’s first purchase after graduation, no air conditioning (and we live in the South) and got terrible gas mileage, I think it was maybe 13 MPG for some reason, but still, it ran, though it had quite a bit of mileage on it, (this would have been ’95 or ’96 or so, don’t know how many miles though).
I think he got more than he expected out of it, didn’t fit his needs any longer. Don’t know what he did about the registration, since it was still their car, and I guess this was before all the charities were asking you to gift them vehicles so they could try to sell them. He was happy to pass it on to whomever might be able to make use of it (in a way, ahead of his time…I see scooters parked on corners for last mile transport, maybe it could be a “pass along” car…though I doubt anyone would take trouble to put gas in it let alone perform maintenance…and insurance (don’t know how you would handle it on a car nobody claims ownership of).