Top 10 Most Frequently Stolen Vehicles

Fox News ^ | December 10, 2008

[Stoat]

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The Highway Data Loss Institute of the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety has released its report on the most frequently stolen vehicles in the United States from the 2005-2007 model years, based on the number of claims per thousand vehicles insured.

Unlike a list of the overall number of vehicles stolen, the HDLI tells you the odds that your car will be snatched based on how many others are on the road. It’s like a bad lottery.

Car thieves must also steal their gasoline, because 9 of the top 10 vehicles are some of the largest cars and trucks on the market, including #1, the big daddy Cadillac Escalade ESV.

Except for the one, they’re all American, too. Go, USA!

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Rounding out the top five are the Ford F-250 pickup, standard Cadillac Escalade, Dodge Charger and the Ford F-350.

Least stolen? It’s a three-way tie between the Mercedes-Benz E Class 4WD, Buick Ranier, and Subaru Forester. Only .6 of each were stolen per 1,000 insured.

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[Spktyr]

Um... actually, that was me taking the pictures. Those pictures were not given to anyone or seen in any court. I happened across the truck at a storage place one day and took the pictures. This occurred after the recall had been issued, and the owner hadn’t made it in to have the recall service performed.

The cruise control/brake master cylinder fire is a KNOWN and REPRODUCIBLE defect in Fords with that type master cylinder.

[AnAmericanMother]

The minivan market in general has been crashing, not just at Ford. Edmunds had an article awhile back about Chrysler “gambling” on minivans when everybody else was going to crossovers.

[Spktyr]

Except even Kia and GM *have* minivans on offer... Ford doesn’t.

[AnAmericanMother]

I think what my service rep was complaining about was that they were recalling all cruise controls regardless of whether the model was involved in any fires.

I'm glad those pics weren't involved in a court case, but let's just say I've seen an awful lot of them that were, and they weren't always "truthful and accurate representations of the matter observed by the witness".

[AnAmericanMother]

And which mfr is it again that doesn’t need a bailout?

[Doctor Raoul]

Wonder if Terry McAuliffe still drives that big ass Escalade?

Had Vanity Plates that read “DNC”. We ragged on him that it was for “Does Not Conserve” and “Does Not Care”.

[Brett66]

I saw a Ford pickup’s battery ignite in the parking lot of the gym I go to. It sent up a flame that caught the whole hood on fire, fire department came out and put it out.

I jumped in my car parked right next to it and moved it down a few spaces. LOL.

[Spktyr]

You mean other than Toyota, Nissan, Honda, BMW, Mercedes, Kia, Hyundai, Mitsubishi, Ferreri, Lamborghini?

Oh, you meant of the domestic marques? Ford - but only because they’ve sold off ALL their acquisitions from the past 20 years. If you subtract the money they got from selling off Jaguar, Land Rover, Mazda, and Aston Martin, they’re deep in the hole. They’re even going to sell Volvo.

Nice deflection from the quality and fire issues, by the way.

[flowerplough]

Subaru Forester is on the least-stolen list for a reason. Monkey with one o’ them and a coupla burly dykes come barreling down the driveway screaming and waving their favorite baseball bats.

[Spktyr]

I didn’t need to present them for a case - as I said, it was at a mini-storage place, and you *know* those things often have cameras out the wazoo. The whole thing was captured on tape anyway.

The service rep may have been complaining, but they weren’t recalling all cruise controls, just the ones with the defective switches and that particular design. You do know why they burst into flames, right?

[AnAmericanMother]

Wasn't a deflection, just a question.

I haven't had any problems with the quality of the Fords we've had (other than that abominable Windstar). Any recalls have been handled promptly and for free. We had a lot more trouble with recalls on the older Volvo - particularly the first-generation onboard computer which gave everybody fits. The Toyota Landcruiser ute we owned was a bit of a dog (recurrent engine problems), and of course the BMW 2002 tii was a fun ride but very cranky and expensive to repair. The TR-6 and TR-4 were the original electrical fires waiting to happen, after the second fire we put a battery kill switch in the TR-6 and that solved the problem (also kept some poor fool from successfully hotwiring it - burning question is, why did he WANT it?) Never had any trouble with my husband's Volvo 840 sedan, other than an 18-wheeler spinning out and totalling it . . . .

So I'd say all in all our personal experience with the Fords has been pretty good, compared to the other stuff in the driveway. The main thing is, we have an honest dealer that has always dealt straight with us both in the service and the sales departments.

[Spktyr]

If it was at the passenger side front of the hood, it was the battery. If it was at the driver’s rear side of the hood, it was the master cylinder going up.

[Brett66]

Hmmm, I guess it was the master cylinder then. I thought only the battery would spontaneously ignite like that.

[Spktyr]

A relative of mine had the pre-99 Ford 4.6L intake manifold crack problem. Ford wouldn’t fix it because the engine was in a Mustang and he wasn’t a fleet buyer. Ford WOULD fix the problem if it was in a Grand Marquis or Crown Vic and it was part of a fleet... but if you had a Mustang, truck, Explorer, or anything else that had the 4.6, you were SOL.

He had to sue Ford to get them to fix the problem.

Here’s a discussion of what happened: http://www.flamingfords.info/manifoldSettlement.html

[Spktyr]

Nope. And a shorting battery is actually less dramatic than the master cylinder going up.

The Ford truck fire defect is a combination of stupid design and bad UAW workmanship.

[AnAmericanMother]

Glad I don't have the 4.6 in anything!

The website seems to exaggerate a good deal (don't have ANY Ford with a cruise control anywhere near where you sleep, even if it's not one of the recalled models - Ford electrical engineers no good, etc.) but that's normal for internet crusades. When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Similar websites exist for almost every make and model out there . . . e.g. GMLemonCars.com, the first one I found.

[Spktyr]

Agreed, but it had a pretty good capsule description of the manifold problem.

You didn’t answer my question, though - you do know why they go up in flames, right?

[Don W]

My kid sis just bought one, and she LOVES it.

Style is a matter of taste. The Magnum is a return to the real station wagon, as opposed to those rolling abortions called “minivans”.

[AnAmericanMother]

Yep, switch overheats and ignites leaking fluid from the master.

Look, I've owned Triumphs, there's nothing you can tell me about all the ways a car can catch on fire. Our TR-6 caught on fire TWICE. In our case, it was a transitional model (iirc, a '76, it had the square tail lights anyhow) which included both the stalk dimmer switch and the old style foot dimmer. If you turned on the stalk dimmer switch while the foot switch was already in the on position, it created a dead short through the battery that bypassed the fuse box (a careful study of a schematic revealed that this was overlooked by the designer -- and they say Ford has bad electrical engineers, they are nothing on Joe Lucas's men.)

The carburetors also had a tendency to leak, and if a diaphragm ruptured (thank you Stromberg) it could spray gasoline on the hot manifold. That never happened to us, thank goodness, although the diaphragms ruptured often enough that we had an impact wrench and two sets of spares in the trunk.

We had three fire extinguishers strategically positioned in the vehicle.

And it must be contagious, because while we were parked at the grocery store, the Chevy Nova NEXT to us caught on fire. We were able to put it out promptly, anyhow.

[Spktyr]

Actually, not *quite* how it works.

Ford decided in their infinite wisdom to make the cruise control “brake cancel switch” a pressure switch on the master cylinder. And then they decided to leave it powered all the time, even when the car was turned off. Yup, the cruise switch still had power flowing to it even though the engine was turned off and keys were removed. That’s just bad design - why would you leave that switch powered????

The poor workmanship enters the picture (and causes the fire) when the poorly made switch begins to leak and brake fluid enters the switch. This causes a short, the brake fluid starts heating up, and then it passes the flash point... with a BOOOOM coming up in short order.

The telling point is that this doesn’t ever happen with the engine on. That’s because there is a cooling air flow over the engine and the master cylinder which keeps the temp below critical when the car is running or in motion.