The Cars Most at Risk of Theft

It’s no secret that car theft is on the rise, par­tic­u­lar­ly due to the increased pop­u­lar­i­ty of key­less cars. The ease of hack­ing key fobs and extend­ing the sig­nal has allowed for more cars to be at risk and for them to be stolen quick­er than ever before, with key­less theft only tak­ing a mat­ter of min­utes. But what cars are most at risk? Read on to find out… 

The car with the high­est num­ber of thefts in 2017 was the Mer­cedes-Benz C Class. Hav­ing been in pre­vi­ous years’ top 10 lists. It’s now risen to the top as thieves increas­ing­ly tar­get exec­u­tive cars.

Com­ing in sec­ond place was 2016’s most stolen car, the BMW X5, with the Range Rover Sport com­ing in third. 

In fourth place, it’s one of the best Mer­cedes cars on the mar­ket, the Mer­cedes-Benz E Class. 

With­in the rest of the top 10, it tends to be pre­mi­um cars with 2 BMW mod­els (3 Series and M3), the Land Rover Dis­cov­ery, the Range Rover Auto­bi­og­ra­phy and the Audi RS4. 

But it’s not just pre­mi­um cars that are most at risk. The VW Golf comes in at num­ber 9, show­ing that afford­able key­less cars can also be a tar­get. Sim­i­lar­ly, Cleve­land Police in Mid­dles­brough report­ed that half of the cars stolen in the first part of the year were Ford Fiestas. 

What about if you own a van? The top 2 com­mer­cial vehi­cles at risk are the Ford Tran­sit and the Land Rover, close­ly fol­lowed by the Mer­cedes Sprint­er, Volk­swa­gen Trans­porter and Fiat Duca­to. Van theft can be detri­men­tal for small busi­ness­es, with the valu­able con­tents of the vans also being stolen and often resold almost immediately. 

One thing is for sure! These cars are all at risk due to relay attacks. This is done by inter­cept­ing the sig­nal giv­en off by a set of car keys. It involves two peo­ple – one stands by the vehi­cle while the oth­er stands near the house with a device that can pick up the sig­nal from a key fob. This device can ampli­fy and relay the key fob’s sig­nal direct­ly to the car, allow­ing any thief to get in and dri­ve away imme­di­ate­ly. With hack­ing devices cost­ing as lit­tle as £80, and cars with key­less fobs becom­ing more pop­u­lar, it’s expect­ed this type of car crime will increase rapid­ly. It’s thought that 66% of car thefts in the UK last year were through relay attacks, show­ing just how much of a grow­ing prob­lem this is for vehi­cle owners. 

In terms of relay attacks, it was found that BMW and Peu­geot’s sys­tems tend­ed to be the weak­est at resist­ing this sort of hack. 

Is your car on this list? Don’t wor­ry. 3D Autokeys can help! We have a prod­uct that can pro­tect your car from key­less theft – the Key­less Pro­tec­tor. The key­less pro­tec­tor is one of the best solu­tions on the mar­ket to resolve key­less entry car theft and the first elec­tron­ic key fob pro­tec­tion in the world! For only £145, you can guar­an­tee your car is pro­tect­ed from all relay attacks. 

The prod­uct works by block­ing the sig­nal from the remote con­trol when it’s not need­ed. The advanced tech­nol­o­gy ultra-thin cir­cuit board wraps around the vehi­cle remote key bat­tery. The Key­less Pro­tec­tor can then detect when the key is not in use. To reac­ti­vate the key, all that’s need­ed is a dou­ble tap on your bag or pock­et, and your car will be unlocked!