Hold on to those headlights people...
03-07-2003, 05:18 AM
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Hold on to those headlights people...
article in the NYTimes today:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/07/automobiles/07THEF.html
xenon, airbags, etc. confirms some of the sad stories told on this forum lately.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/07/automobiles/07THEF.html
xenon, airbags, etc. confirms some of the sad stories told on this forum lately.
03-07-2003, 05:28 AM
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Your Car: A Thief's Wish List
By WALECIA KONRAD
Remember those "no radio" signs people used to tape onto car windows to discourage thieves from breaking in? Back then, the radio was the street criminal's car part of choice. These days you would have a better chance of getting the crooks to pass by if your sign said "no air bags" or "no xenon."
Fashion is fickle, even in the illegal market for items stripped from parked cars. Like department store buyers, today's fences and shady mechanics have different needs than their counterparts did a few years ago.
"First it was radios and hubcaps," said Ed Sparkman of the National Insurance Crime Bureau, a nonprofit organization that works to limit insurance fraud. "Now it's air bags and headlights. Thieves have to go where the market is."
Selling a car part by part has always fetched more for thieves than unloading it whole. But ripping parts out at the curb is tempting on a new level since electronic keys with computer chips have made it more difficult to steal a car in one piece. It is almost impossible to hot-wire most cars made since the late 1990's. Unable to drive off with the new models, thieves go for the parts.
But for a quick and lucrative turnaround, what parts to steal?
The answer depends partly on an increasingly complicated game of cat and mouse. When a part becomes a thieves' favorite, automakers make it harder to steal. Crooks move on to another chunk of the car, and manufacturers must use their inventiveness to try to protect this new target, too.
Radios and Cadillac hubcaps, for example, were hot theft items in the 80's but fell out of favor when manufacturers started selling radios that drivers could take with them and built hubcap locks into cars. There are serial numbers on air bags, but now the insurance industry is pushing for manufacturers to include vehicle identification numbers on them to make it easier to identify stolen goods. To help drivers protect their headlights, Nissan has come out with a theft-deterrent kit that includes special bolts and locks.
Then there is style. Manufacturers are always appealing to the image-conscious with fancy parts and accessories that are expensive to buy or replace. Whatever is lusted after at the moment -- like xenon headlights, fancy wheels or global positioning systems -- is vulnerable.
Exactly what part of your car you may find missing one day depends on what you drive and where you live. In New York City and northern New Jersey, it's those headlights. "Theft of these things has become absolutely epidemic in the Northeast," said Michael Fella, director of operations for the Melville, N.Y., field office of the National Insurance Crime Bureau.
The lights, which can range from $750 to $1,000 each, are the bluish ones that have become increasingly common on the highways. They use a spark to ignite a tube of xenon gas, and they are brighter and longer-lasting than conventional headlights. Makers of luxury cars like BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi and Lexus have been offering the lights on new cars for several years, but in most of these cars removing the lights requires opening the hood, an inconvenience for thieves.
But xenon lights are also a popular item in auto-parts stores, and these aftermarket lights, added by the owner after buying the car, are often easier to remove. So are the xenon lamps that became standard equipment on the Acura TL and Nissan Maxima about two years ago. Thieves can sometimes rip out these lights without opening the hood -- and they often cause serious damage to the car's front end in the process.
"Thieves got at one of my customer's lights not once, but twice," said Dan Rheinstein, a repair shop owner in Millwood, N.Y. "They did a total of $3,400 worth of damage. It was heartbreaking. I worked so hard to touch up the paint and make the car look perfect after the first time -- and then a few months later it happened again."
If the Northeast is headlight territory, Texas is air-bag country. "Out here, air bags are the radios of yesterday," said Detective Bill Skinner of the Dallas Police Department's Auto Salvage Unit. "They're popular because thieves can just do a smash and grab."
Another reason may be that, according to Detective Skinner, chop shops and auto theft rings specializing in air bags have chosen Texas as a base of operations.
Air bags are a good business for thieves. If an air bag deploys it has to be replaced; it cannot be reused. And to protect people in cars, the bags are made to deploy with even a fairly minor impact.
By WALECIA KONRAD
Remember those "no radio" signs people used to tape onto car windows to discourage thieves from breaking in? Back then, the radio was the street criminal's car part of choice. These days you would have a better chance of getting the crooks to pass by if your sign said "no air bags" or "no xenon."
Fashion is fickle, even in the illegal market for items stripped from parked cars. Like department store buyers, today's fences and shady mechanics have different needs than their counterparts did a few years ago.
"First it was radios and hubcaps," said Ed Sparkman of the National Insurance Crime Bureau, a nonprofit organization that works to limit insurance fraud. "Now it's air bags and headlights. Thieves have to go where the market is."
Selling a car part by part has always fetched more for thieves than unloading it whole. But ripping parts out at the curb is tempting on a new level since electronic keys with computer chips have made it more difficult to steal a car in one piece. It is almost impossible to hot-wire most cars made since the late 1990's. Unable to drive off with the new models, thieves go for the parts.
But for a quick and lucrative turnaround, what parts to steal?
The answer depends partly on an increasingly complicated game of cat and mouse. When a part becomes a thieves' favorite, automakers make it harder to steal. Crooks move on to another chunk of the car, and manufacturers must use their inventiveness to try to protect this new target, too.
Radios and Cadillac hubcaps, for example, were hot theft items in the 80's but fell out of favor when manufacturers started selling radios that drivers could take with them and built hubcap locks into cars. There are serial numbers on air bags, but now the insurance industry is pushing for manufacturers to include vehicle identification numbers on them to make it easier to identify stolen goods. To help drivers protect their headlights, Nissan has come out with a theft-deterrent kit that includes special bolts and locks.
Then there is style. Manufacturers are always appealing to the image-conscious with fancy parts and accessories that are expensive to buy or replace. Whatever is lusted after at the moment -- like xenon headlights, fancy wheels or global positioning systems -- is vulnerable.
Exactly what part of your car you may find missing one day depends on what you drive and where you live. In New York City and northern New Jersey, it's those headlights. "Theft of these things has become absolutely epidemic in the Northeast," said Michael Fella, director of operations for the Melville, N.Y., field office of the National Insurance Crime Bureau.
The lights, which can range from $750 to $1,000 each, are the bluish ones that have become increasingly common on the highways. They use a spark to ignite a tube of xenon gas, and they are brighter and longer-lasting than conventional headlights. Makers of luxury cars like BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi and Lexus have been offering the lights on new cars for several years, but in most of these cars removing the lights requires opening the hood, an inconvenience for thieves.
But xenon lights are also a popular item in auto-parts stores, and these aftermarket lights, added by the owner after buying the car, are often easier to remove. So are the xenon lamps that became standard equipment on the Acura TL and Nissan Maxima about two years ago. Thieves can sometimes rip out these lights without opening the hood -- and they often cause serious damage to the car's front end in the process.
"Thieves got at one of my customer's lights not once, but twice," said Dan Rheinstein, a repair shop owner in Millwood, N.Y. "They did a total of $3,400 worth of damage. It was heartbreaking. I worked so hard to touch up the paint and make the car look perfect after the first time -- and then a few months later it happened again."
If the Northeast is headlight territory, Texas is air-bag country. "Out here, air bags are the radios of yesterday," said Detective Bill Skinner of the Dallas Police Department's Auto Salvage Unit. "They're popular because thieves can just do a smash and grab."
Another reason may be that, according to Detective Skinner, chop shops and auto theft rings specializing in air bags have chosen Texas as a base of operations.
Air bags are a good business for thieves. If an air bag deploys it has to be replaced; it cannot be reused. And to protect people in cars, the bags are made to deploy with even a fairly minor impact.
03-07-2003, 05:29 AM
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Several hundred thousand air bags are thought to deploy each year in the United States. Add to that the thousands stolen (though no one has been keeping count) and there is obviously a sizable market for replacements. Replacement air bags are expensive -- usually about $1,000 each -- and auto insurers will pay for them only if they come from the manufacturer. A garage can get a stolen air bag, however, for $100 or $200.
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"At some disreputable repair shops a mechanic will install a stolen air bag bought for a couple of hundred bucks and then bill the insurance company for the full amount," said Mr. Sparkman of the National Insurance Crime Bureau. What's more, drivers who don't have full insurance coverage will often choose to have a second-hand air bag installed to save money. The result is an extremely active market for stolen air bags.
If you drive a Mustang in Dallas, watch out. In one Dallas apartment complex a group of five or six thieves stole both the driver-side and passenger air bags from eight Ford Mustangs, Detective Skinner said. "We've got some high-end crooks that will put in special orders with street criminals," he said. "One guy in particular puts in orders for Mustangs. It's not quite as dramatic as `Gone in 60 Seconds,' but it's the same idea," he said, referring to the 2000 movie that depicted an especially efficient auto thief.
There are many Internet sites selling stolen air bags. Typically the unscrupulous sellers deliver them by mail in plain packages, an illegal technique that can lead police to them. To be shipped legally, air bags must be specially packed and marked as hazardous material, something all legitimate shippers know. "These things basically are bombs," Mr. Sparkman said. "They have a detonator."
What will be the next big thing? "We're keeping an eye on these nifty global positioning systems that are factory-installed on more and more cars," said Pete Moraga, a spokesman for the Insurance Information Network of California, a nonprofit group supported by insurers. "They sit right on the dash, are quite valuable and seem extremely vulnerable."
All of this smashing and grabbing doesn't mean that whole cars aren't still being stolen. Auto theft was up 4.5 percent for the first half of 2002, the latest statistic that was available from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and even cars loaded with antitheft devices are not safe. "Now criminals simply steal a flat-bed tow truck and haul the car away for parts," said Mikel Longman, a retired Arizona state police officer and director of the Arizona Auto Theft Authority, a state agency financed by insurers.
Another ploy is to pick out a vehicle, copy down its vehicle identification number (federal law dictates that the number be visible on every car, and it is usually on the driver's side of the dashboard), and then go to a dealer of that model posing as the owner and asking for another key. "Some dealers don't check to see if the person is really the owner," Mr. Longman said. "So the thief ends up with a key to your car."
Pity the poor owners of Hondas and Acura Integras in Southern California; they are often victims of another car-theft fashion. Their region is the center of the street-racing craze made famous in "The Fast and the Furious," a movie released in 2001, and now eagerly copied in some other major cities. Racers favor these models, which they soup up with special engines, transmissions, exhaust systems, spoilers and xenon lights (some stolen, some not) and then race in legitimate events or illegally and dangerously on city streets.
"If you own an Accord or Integra, your car definitely has a greater chance of being stolen here," Mr. Moraga said. "The majority end up in the street-racing scene. It's part of the reason the Honda Civic has been on the top 10 most popular stolen car list for the past five years."
And you thought it was the gas mileage.
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"At some disreputable repair shops a mechanic will install a stolen air bag bought for a couple of hundred bucks and then bill the insurance company for the full amount," said Mr. Sparkman of the National Insurance Crime Bureau. What's more, drivers who don't have full insurance coverage will often choose to have a second-hand air bag installed to save money. The result is an extremely active market for stolen air bags.
If you drive a Mustang in Dallas, watch out. In one Dallas apartment complex a group of five or six thieves stole both the driver-side and passenger air bags from eight Ford Mustangs, Detective Skinner said. "We've got some high-end crooks that will put in special orders with street criminals," he said. "One guy in particular puts in orders for Mustangs. It's not quite as dramatic as `Gone in 60 Seconds,' but it's the same idea," he said, referring to the 2000 movie that depicted an especially efficient auto thief.
There are many Internet sites selling stolen air bags. Typically the unscrupulous sellers deliver them by mail in plain packages, an illegal technique that can lead police to them. To be shipped legally, air bags must be specially packed and marked as hazardous material, something all legitimate shippers know. "These things basically are bombs," Mr. Sparkman said. "They have a detonator."
What will be the next big thing? "We're keeping an eye on these nifty global positioning systems that are factory-installed on more and more cars," said Pete Moraga, a spokesman for the Insurance Information Network of California, a nonprofit group supported by insurers. "They sit right on the dash, are quite valuable and seem extremely vulnerable."
All of this smashing and grabbing doesn't mean that whole cars aren't still being stolen. Auto theft was up 4.5 percent for the first half of 2002, the latest statistic that was available from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and even cars loaded with antitheft devices are not safe. "Now criminals simply steal a flat-bed tow truck and haul the car away for parts," said Mikel Longman, a retired Arizona state police officer and director of the Arizona Auto Theft Authority, a state agency financed by insurers.
Another ploy is to pick out a vehicle, copy down its vehicle identification number (federal law dictates that the number be visible on every car, and it is usually on the driver's side of the dashboard), and then go to a dealer of that model posing as the owner and asking for another key. "Some dealers don't check to see if the person is really the owner," Mr. Longman said. "So the thief ends up with a key to your car."
Pity the poor owners of Hondas and Acura Integras in Southern California; they are often victims of another car-theft fashion. Their region is the center of the street-racing craze made famous in "The Fast and the Furious," a movie released in 2001, and now eagerly copied in some other major cities. Racers favor these models, which they soup up with special engines, transmissions, exhaust systems, spoilers and xenon lights (some stolen, some not) and then race in legitimate events or illegally and dangerously on city streets.
"If you own an Accord or Integra, your car definitely has a greater chance of being stolen here," Mr. Moraga said. "The majority end up in the street-racing scene. It's part of the reason the Honda Civic has been on the top 10 most popular stolen car list for the past five years."
And you thought it was the gas mileage.
03-07-2003, 06:30 AM
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It says Nissan has a Theft Deterrent kit for the headlights now...
"To help drivers protect their headlights, Nissan has come out with a theft-deterrent kit that includes special bolts and locks."
Audi should do the same, as well as with the easily bypassable security system.
Audi should do the same, as well as with the easily bypassable security system.
