Thieves just love the high-tech in your car

You may think your space age, computer-powered motor is harder to break into than a Nasa shuttle, but...

Driving a new car these days makes you feel like you are piloting a spaceship. Snazzy new car designs, lit up with dazzling LED lighting strips, look like something out of a science fiction movie. Onboard computers instantly tell us whenever something is wrong, and parking is a doddle with front and rear cameras now standard features. There are even computer sensors inside tyres now to tell us when pressure is low – and keys have become old school. Nowadays, you just have to walk up to a car, it senses a gizmo in your pocket at a certain distance and opens the doors automatically.

But all of this new technology comes at a price.

Good old-fashioned bulbs can be screwed out and replaced for less than a tenner, but newfangled car lights can cost you hundreds of euros as the whole unit must be replaced.

Those computer ports for checking your engine can also easily be hacked by unscrupulous mechanics to change the mileage of cars, a fraudulent practice known as ‘clocking’.

Cartell.ie informs us that 11% of domestic vehicles and 18% of imported ones are now clocked. That’s over 200,000 vehicles at a very conservative estimate.

When shopping for a car late last year, I used Motorcheck.ie to check two cars.

It found a mileage discrepancy on one of them, which was being sold by a dealer.

The Motorcheck.ie operatives told me then that he ‘finds examples every day’.

‘It’s very easy for any mechanic to access the computer. It was actually harder to clock the old manual odometers,’ he said.

Car thefts (and some related offences) may have plummeted from 14,460 a year in 2008 to just 4,837 in 2016 thanks to high tech security in cars, but in 2017 the car theft figure edged up again to 4,905 (excluding car-jacking incidents).

And car theft figures in Britain are absolutely skyrocketing, with experts pointing the finger at gangs who have learned how to disable the latest security systems.

The number of vehicles stolen in Britain has almost doubled in the past five years. 111,999 cars were pinched in 2017-18, up from 75,308 in the 2013-14 financial year. British experts have warned that criminal gangs use gadgets costing less than €300 to hack into vehicles, allowing them to break into the car and drive it away without ever having to get their hands on a set of keys.

Gardaí warned last year of an increase in hi-tech car crime and arrested two men of Eastern European origin in Dún Laoghaire who were found with an electronic relay box.

They were subsequently released without charge.

Motorcheck.ie boss Michael Rochfort believes car security is also becoming compromised by some features exclusive to new cars, particularly keyless entry.

‘It’s a classic example of crooks using our desire for greater convenience against us,’ he notes.

‘There is a perception that, with modern immobiliser and electronic key technology, newer cars are virtually immune from theft, but that’s simply not the case.

‘One of the big new weak spots is the use of relay transmitters to amplify the signal from a keyless entry key to the car sitting on your driveway,’ Mr Rochort says. ‘Using a signal booster, the crooks can convince the car’s electronics that the key is next to the car, rather than sitting in the pocket of your trousers inside the house, and can open the door and drive away.

‘There is no need to break into the house to get the keys any more.’

One such incident was recorded on CCTV in Dublin last year, when thieves used a relay to fool a high-end BMW into believing that they had the keys. The majority of cars targeted by motor thieves are high-priced models from premium brands.

Those targeted include Audi, BMW, Land Rover and Mercedes, which have strong resale values on foreign markets.

These vehicles can also be broken down into component parts and sold at high prices on the continent to unaware consumers.

But many standard cars’ security systems are now also being compromised as the crooks learn how to crack into them.