THE WHEELS THIEVES WANT TO STEAL
Toronto’s most stolen vehicles in 2021 are Hondas and Toyotas — part of a spiking trend in thefts, police say
Some SUV models of Toyota’s luxury brand, Lexus, have a staggering one-in-five chance of being stolen, according to insurance claim data released to the Toronto Star.
If you drive certain cars and trucks in Canada — particularly Toyota/Lexus and Honda products — there is a high chance you will walk out your door in the morning and find it stolen.
“Lexus and a few of the other brands are in high demand overseas and they are pretty easy to take,” says one veteran police detective.
If it happens to you, your car will likely be opened and started using cheap technology to reprogram the car to accept a new smart key. It will leave your driveway or a parking lot between the hours of 1 and 5 a.m., and be driven somewhere to cool off — thieves want breathing room to make sure you have not installed a secret tracking device. Then it will be loaded onto a container and shipped across the Atlantic.
In Toronto and parts of the GTA, car theft rates are soaring, according to data kept by insurance companies and police. Toronto alone is at 6,000 car thefts this year, a 10 per cent increase over 2020, with another month still to go. Peel Region has seen 3,600 thefts so far. York Region is over 2,000.
In terms of actual brands stolen, Toronto police provided the Star with a breakdown of the year so far in Toronto. Topping that list were 654 stolen Honda CR-Vs, along with 418 Lexus RX 350s, a luxury SUV made by Toyota. If you own that model of Lexus in Ontario you have a one in 14 chance of it being stolen, insurance data shows.
Across Canada, the story is similar, fuelled by a pandemic-driven, worldwide shortage in new cars. Roughly 80,000 motorized vehicles (cars, trucks, SUVs, motorcycles, ATVs) have been stolen so far this year, an increase of several thousand over 2020.
In Alberta, it’s the Ford F-150 pickup truck that is the most popular target. In Quebec, the Honda CR-V. And throughout Canada, Toyota RAV4s and Highlanders and Land Rover’s Range Rover are among the most enticing to thieves.
“The vehicles being stolen are commodity-based money laundering,” says Brian Gast, a former police detective who heads up the national insurance industry’s new crime-fighting group, Équité Association. Gast says stolen vehicles are shipped overseas “where they’re being exchanged to fund organized crime and terrorism.”
In December each year, the insurance industry publishes a list of the top 10 most commonly stolen vehicles for the previous year. The Star went deeper, to see the actual numbers stolen in certain jurisdictions for certain brands. We were also curious to find out which cars are not stolen.
While some of the following models are occasionally stolen, there is a low rate of theft for Volvo, Mercedes Benz, Audi, Hyundai, and most Ford, General Motors and Dodge products (though some pickup trucks made by Dodge, Ford and GM are stolen in the province each year — much more in Alberta). Subaru products such as the Crosstrek, Forester and Outback are rarely stolen. Of 409,298 Subarus in the 2020 insurance database, only 270 were stolen. Teslas and other electric cars, like the Chevrolet Bolt and the Hyundai Kona, are hardly ever stolen, the data shows.
On the flip side, what is being stolen? The Star looked at partial insurance data for 2020, the most current year available.
In general, Toyota/Lexus and Hondas are the most popular theft targets. Honda’s luxury line, Acura, used to be in more demand but not so much lately. Between sedans and sport utility vehicle (SUV) models, there is no contest. SUVs are stolen at a much higher rate.
Looking just at Ontario, one Lexus brand SUV, the LX 570, was stolen at a rate of one in five for the 2019 and 2020 model years. For Toyotas themselves, the Highlander SUV was stolen at a rate of close to three of every 100 in the insurance data.
Honda’s CR-V, a mid-sized SUV, was stolen at a rate of close to two out of every 100 listed in the Ontario section of the insurance database. In Quebec, it is closer to four out of every 100.
Other vehicles show a high rate of demand by thieves. The Range Rover was stolen at a rate of close to six out of every 100 on the road in Ontario.
The Honda Accord, a moderately priced sedan with thousands of vehicles on the road, showed a rate of just over one in 100 stolen.
Occasionally, a truly high-end vehicle is stolen. In 2020, a 2020 Ftype Jaguar coupe was stolen, valued at $111,000. Or the 2017 Lamborghini Huracan Spyder, valued at $328,000.
In 2020, insurance claims from stolen vehicles in Ontario totalled $238 million. Insurance experts interviewed by the Star say that these massive payouts are passed on to all drivers as higher insurance premiums — higher depending on where you live.
Toronto police do not have a dedicated auto theft squad. Peel and York Region police do. Coun. Mike Colle (Eglinton-Lawrence) and some neighbourhood associations are calling on Toronto, the province and Canada to put together a task force to tackle this problem.
“This auto theft epidemic crosses municipal, provincial and international boundaries and that is why we need everyone at the table,” Colle said.
So common are thefts that if your car is stolen, it is highly unlikely that police will come to your house or apartment, according to interviews the Star has conducted with over 100 theft victims. Reports are taken over the phone. When you make your insurance claim, the insurance adjuster will ask for the “police report number,” which insurance needs to process your claim. Police will ask if you have video of the theft. The common reality is the thieves are wearing face masks and driving a “scout” car with stolen plates, so the video is useless, homeowners say.
Theft victims say that neither their dealership nor the car manufacturer provided any warnings, or tips on how to avoid theft.
The Star has been trying for several weeks to interview officials with Honda and Toyota, the manufacturers most often targeted. Requests for in-person or telephone interviews have been ignored.
Honda’s John Bordignon responded to questions from the Star about whether Honda was warning people about thefts with the following statement: “As you know, Honda vehicles are safe, reliable, practical, well-engineered, popular and fun to drive. This makes them attractive to consumers as well as thieves.”
Bordignon said the “sheer amount of (Honda) Civics and CRVs on the road, parts (particularly for older models) remain in high demand, making these vehicles a prime target for bad guys.”
He added that Hondas have a “Theft-Deterrent System” ignition key that is “extremely difficult to duplicate.”
There were 4,332 Hondas stolen across Canada in 2020, including 364 Acura models (the carmaker’s luxury brand).
Toyota’s Michael Bouliane was also asked by the Star whether dealerships give specific warnings to new and existing customers about how easy it is these days to copy a smart key (the key fob that has replaced a physical key in many vehicles) or reprogram a vehicle to start it up and drive away.
Bouliane responded with a generic email. “When it comes to the industry-wide issue of auto theft, certain vehicles are in higher demand than others,” Bouliane wrote. He added that Toyota is “continuing to develop technology that strengthens the security of our vehicles.” He said all models with a smart key have a “feature that turns the key fob off when not in use.” The Star found that in the owner’s manual under “Battery Saving Function.”
There were 4,517 Toyotas stolen across Canada in 2020, including 1,745 Lexus models.
Honda and Toyota products do account for a high number of cars on the road, but the Star found they are over-represented in the insurance claim data. (A caveat: the data the Star was provided by insurance officials doesn’t capture the full picture of the approximately 80,000 motor vehicle thefts Statistics Canada reports annually — some areas of the country are missing, along with motorcycles and vehicles that do not have theft insurance.)
However, of the 26,443 stolen vehicles in the 2020 insurance data provided to the Star, 33 per cent (8,849) of those stolen are Toyota or Honda products. Of the total number of insured cars in the insurance data, Toyota and Honda products make up 25 per cent.