Car theft has always had trends, from speakers and stereos in the ‘90s, to catalytic converters in recent years, but what are car thieves targeting now?
Blame the Beastie Boys, the cost of rare metals, the fad for fancy alloy wheels… The shopping list of goods stolen from cars has changed over the decades, but the light-fingered villains engaged in roadside skulduggery are still very much at work.
Even a car fitted with a sophisticated alarm or tracking system remains vulnerable. Many drivers aren’t aware of the high-value parts “most wanted” by thieves. but police and manufacturers have been working together to stop your vehicle becoming just another statistic.
The latest “steal” is the catalytic Converter – a device fitted to exhaust systems that reduces the amount of dangerous gas emitted from the tailpipe. Some of the rare metals found inside – platinum, palladium, and rhodium – are more valuable than gold. They can be easily sold on, which makes them rich pickings, despite their location under the vehicle.
The crime jumped 51 per cent in the first three months of 2021, costing motorists an average of $1,500 to repair. Petrol hybrid cars like the Honda Jazz and Toyota Corolla are the most vulnerable, with older cars not fitted with a catalytic locking system at the top of the hit list.
One reader, who didn’t want to be named, said her Toyota Prius had been targeted twice in a month one of our major cities. “The second time I actually caught them jacking up the car and using an angle grinder to cut off my exhaust – there was nothing I could do and now my insurance premiums have gone up too.”
Car owners without a garage are advised to park their car against a wall to make access underneath harder, or fit aftermarket catalytic locks. David Lees, of Banbury said: “Some vehicles are more attractive to thieves than others. It might be the location of the converter or the value of the precious metals inside. Our units cost from around $230 and feature on the official police security initiative, Secured By Design website.”
As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine pushed the price of Brent crude oil to eye-watering levels, some feared petrol theft would be widespread. Thieves have drilled holes into parked cars to pop out the locking filler caps, then syphoned off tanks of fuel, in some cases worth well over $150.
A spokespersons form Police Media says the main items of stolen property are tools from work vans, as well as wallets and handbags from cars. “Catalytic convertors were a big problem two years ago but there’s been a tremendous amount of work with manufacturers since. It’s a very fast crime but a focus on prevention has seen a significant reduction in cases.”
Theft from cars isn’t a modern problem – vehicles have been an easy target for the last 50 years. From the 1970s on car radio theft soared, with expensive, after-market music systems from brands such as Alpine, Pioneer and Kenwood flooding the market. You were a nobody unless a whopping pair of speakers hung on the rear parcel shelf.
Despite a plague of car break-ins, it didn’t stop manufacturers making the removal of a music system easy. Pull-out stereos and detachable head units, which allowed the front panel to be removed, helped cut thefts. But it wasn’t until sound systems were integrated into dashboard design that the problem began to disappear.
The craze for stealing Volkswagen badges began in the late 1980s when an American rap group recorded a top 20 hit called (You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party!). The Beastie Boys song didn’t urge fans to rip VW logos from car grilles – the problem was that band member Mike D wore the emblem on a neck chain in the accompanying music video. Within weeks, an outbreak of badge theft swept the world. The group milked the publicity, but Volkswagen wasn’t impressed. At one stage the problem was so bad the car giant offered to replace customers’ badges free of charge. When the band toured Britain in 1987, there were calls for them to be deported.
VW tried to turn a negative into a positive with an advertisement showing a Polo minus the badge. The headline underneath read “Designer labels always get ripped off”. A Volkswagen spokesman said at the time: “We find the whole thing distasteful. It’s nice to have one of the world’s best known industrial symbols but it is vandalism. People’s cars are being damaged.”
With the gradual demise of The Beastie Boys, the badge theft trend came to an end. Nowadays, instead of metal badges popped into a plastic grille hole, VW emblems have become a more integrated part of car design and are virtually impossible to remove. Thankfully, Mike D is now a respectable, 56-year-old music producer who wears a suit.
In the 1990s, alloy wheels became the focus of thieves’ attention. If, like me, you stepped out of the house to find your car jacked up on bricks and the wheels gone, then I feel your pain. A smart set of alloys made even a mundane car stand out from the crowd but were also easy to remove.
The solution was simple enough – a set of locking wheel nuts which could only be removed or unscrewed with a special adaptor. Today, a set of alloys can easily cost in excess of $2,000. They are still stolen to order, with thieves using a locking wheel nut removal tool, also used legitimately when motorists lose their nut adaptor.
“When you look at the history of vehicle crime, trends have been stopped by proactive work between the police, government and manufacturers to design out crime,” said the Police Spokeperson. “I want to ensure there is excellent communication between these agencies because that’s how we tackle the problem best, by working together.”
