RX450h now 2nd most stolen car in UK

[Yoshi2210]

Hi all,

Sad to report that my Lexus Rx450h F sport was stolen from outside my home last night. Only had the car 9 weeks. Gutted to say the least. Was on a waiting list for the plates to be fitted.

[larryadler]

Sorry to here that Josh, did you have any anti theft devices on it?

[northpolar]

On 12/16/2023 at 4:58 PM, larryadler said:

Other than, for insurance purposes, that Tracker is Thatcham approved, I see no real benefit. All it means, is that the chances to recover your pride and joy from a ditch, or some back street garage, stripped for parts is more possible. In those circumstances, do you really want it back?
In my opinion, it’s about as much use as having cameras on your drive, for vehicle security, the scrotes will be wearing balaclavas and the old bill these days, don’t make any efforts to identify offenders, just ring for a crime number, for insurance purposes!
We can only do what we can do, a visible steering lock, has to be a deterrent, and without a trailer and winch, with a Ghost or similar immobiliser it ain’t going anywhere.

As to putting info on the vehicle about any security devices fitted, I think that is just making it a challenge for the tow rags, and if you take all the above steps to secure your investment, it will still be there next day, FNS damage accepted.

 

Well I wish that my car had been fitted with a Thatcham approved Tracker when it was stolen early in 2023.  The car was taken into the London Borough adjacent to the one in which I live and left parked up in full public view.  How do I know?  Because I received a penalty charge notice for parking in a controlled parking bay!  Had a tracker been fitted, the car could have been recovered.  Please do not discount trackers as a waste of time.

Peter

[malcolmw]

From the Telegraph. Sorry, for the long post. It's not just us!

"How Range Rovers became virtually uninsurable

Thefts of the car have risen so much that affordable insurance is just not possible
Andrew English 11 January 2024 • 10:39am

Last November, Land Rover issued a press release about its latest investment in vehicle security, calling owners of post-2018 Land Rovers and Range Rovers to bring them in to have a free enhanced security package fitted. With sales affected and cars left virtually uninsurable, things have got so bad that the Solihull-based 4x4 maker is now even offering Range Rover customers insurance arranged through its own scheme.

At about the same time, well let’s just call him Mr X, a London barrister, decided to throw in the towel trying to get insurance on a replacement for the V8 Range Rover he’d had stolen off the street outside his house.
“No one seemed at all surprised when the original was stolen,” he says. “I told the police it was a V8 and they asked where I lived. When I said Westminster they weren’t surprised, they said it was probably in Nigeria by now. Neither was the insurance company which paid up the £70,000 value in six weeks without a question.
“It was when I found another V8 to buy that I realised why. The insurance quote was £26,000... One of our clerks had a Range Rover Sport stolen. He lives in Essex and it was exactly the same story when he came to reinsure a replacement.”

Mr X now drives a Range Rover hybrid. “It isn’t a Range Rover model I particularly like,” he says, “but the insurance is less than a third for that on a V8 and I refuse to have someone else determine what brand of car I drive. I have got a big yellow steering lock, which I hope might be a deterrent.
“It’s just ridiculous,” he adds, “this is becoming an epidemic.”
Further, he dismisses Land Rover’s update bulletins on security. “We get one a month inviting us to go to a dealer to have the software flashed, but they want you to take your car to the middle of nowhere to have it done, they take the entire day, there’s no courtesy car and you have to make your own way there and back; it’s an absolute pain.”
Premium-theft epidemic
It should be said that the issue of premium vehicle theft is far from confined to just Land Rover and Range Rover, with Lexus, Mercedes, BMW and Audi models also suffering. Insurer AXA UK says in the period between 2021 and 2023 it has seen Lexus thefts increase by 22 per cent with RX and NX models the most targeted. Land Rover thefts have increased by 80 per cent in the same period with Range Rovers making up 75 per cent of those thefts.
The villains’ sights have shifted though, with Hyundai thefts up by 144 per cent and Kia thefts up 106 per cent in the last three months compared with the same period last year.  
“For newer makes and models, keyless car theft, or relay theft, is at an all-time high and unfortunately it shows no signs of slowing down,” says David Pearce, director of retail direct at AXA UK.
“This is particularly apparent with the rise in thefts of models like Range Rover and Lexus in recent years. Technology adds a layer of complexity to claims with many cars now including technical parts which can be more challenging to obtain and replace, as well as more expensive.”
In 2022 nearly 100,000 vehicles were stolen in the UK and it’s looking as though this year’s total will be higher. According to a FOI request on behalf of Fleet News magazine, London was the worst place in 2022, with 26,117 vehicles stolen at a rate of 291 per 100,000 people. Next was the West Midlands with 12,223 (417 per 100,000), then Greater Manchester with 7,453 (264 per 100,000). Next up was West Yorkshire with 4,621 thefts, Essex with 3,771 and South Yorkshire with 3,257.

According to Octane Finance, after the Ford Fiesta, the next most stolen car was a Range Rover, followed by the Ford Focus, the VW Golf, and Land Rover Discovery.

A clear problem
Land Rover clearly has a problem, though one spokesperson said this was a case of supply and demand, just too many people want a Range Rover for the factory to supply so the criminal gangs move in to fill that gap.
It’s a slightly odd way of looking at it, but Land Rover also claims theft rate of new Range Rovers and Range Rover Sport models is just 0.07 per cent (0.3 per cent for Defenders) and that its vehicles “consistently exceed standards set by Thatcham, the UK’s leading automotive risk intelligence company”.
Yet stolen Range Rovers, Land Rovers and other premium SUV models are getting to be quite a talking point in the wealthy middle class, which is a key Land Rover target market. .
“We’ve started to park our Range Rover round the back of the house,” said one Berkshire motor trader. “I don’t see the increased insurance premiums so much since our cars are insured on a group policy, but I’ve had clients who’ve given up with Range Rovers.”
Indeed we spoke to one former Range Rover owner based in Essex, who was quoted an insurance premium of “well in excess of £30,000 a year”.
Cat and mouse game
Thatcham doesn’t come out of this too well, either, since it’s clear that its best efforts aren’t good enough. In a statement, the organisation points out the wide variety of causes of rising car crime, including organised criminal gangs, over-stretched police forces, the proliferation of premium cars, the internet and social media platforms which allow gangs to share vehicle vulnerabilities and digital devices which have been reverse engineered.
It adds: “When first introduced in the early 1990s, the New Vehicle Security Assessment (NVSA) was highly effective in adding layers of mechanical security to foil opportunistic criminals and reduced theft figures dramatically, from a peak of over 620,000 thefts a year.
“The standards set out by the NVSA are still the most exacting in the world. However, the process of identifying and closing down digital security vulnerabilities remains a game of cat and mouse.”
Interesting, but this doesn’t do much for Mr X or any of the other premium SUV owners wondering if their prized cars will still be there when they open the front doors and face spiralling insurance premiums.
“They’ve become uninsurable,” said one former policeman from one of the UK’s biggest car crime squads. “Land Rover spent over £10 million on updating its keyless unlocking systems a few years ago and for just about three months their vehicles were impregnable until the gangs worked out how to get past it all.” Jaguar Land Rover said that its deployment of Ultra-Wide Band (UWB) in 2018 means that vehicles equipped with this technology are not vulnerable to attack via the keyless system.
 The former police officer’s quote: “Land Rover spent over £10 million on updating its keyless unlocking systems a few years ago and for just about three months their vehicles were impregnable until the gangs worked out how to get past it all.”: As mentioned above there have been no thefts of our vehicles with UWB technology
Now that “cat-and-mouse game” of police and thieves has started a new round with criminal gangs, many from Eastern Europe, stealing high-value cars, stripping them out in what the police call “slaughter houses”, putting the parts into containers and shipping them out. Those parts are often fitted to crashed and written off versions of the same models and sold as repaired in the UK, Africa and Europe.

How they get away with it
One of the most common methods is to exploit the vulnerabilities in the vehicles’ own locking and security systems. This takes the form of intercepting the communication between the key fob and the vehicle and spoofing the signal so the vehicle unlocks itself. 
There have been various generations of this sort of theft, from jamming the locking signal as the owner walks away leaving the vehicle unlocked and vulnerable, to using a big aerial hidden in the straps of a backpack to “wake up” the key and amplify its signal from your pocket or a sideboard in the house to the target vehicle, which then unlocks itself.
Updates to this vulnerable technology have been introduced; building in a confirmation signal system from the vehicle to the key fob, and sophisticated calculations of the key-fob signal delay, but within weeks the thieves have engineered a sneaky work around.
The equipment to do this is widely available on the internet, with adverts for key-fob duplicators which will work with or without the key being present and remote code grabbers. Lots of these firms operate out of China and there’s another, based in Lebanon, openly advertising radio remote code grabbers, with the caveat that they are intended “for legal use only”, even though it’s difficult to think of any legal use for such products.
Another method is to gain access and reverse engineer a dealer’s emergency start key, which is designed to allow a bona fide dealer to help customers who have lost their key or locked it inside. Again, equipment is available on the internet to do this.
Yet another is to cut open the coachwork (the plastic hatchback on a Range Rover) and gain access to the vehicle’s main can-bus internal communications wiring and wire in your own key-fob replicator sourced from, guess where.
After gaining access, the villains climb in, start the engine and activate a briefcase-sized jammer which suppresses the signals from the vehicles own GPS and any third party anti-theft software and drive the car to a warehouse. Once there, the thieves activate an even bigger jamming device with about 30 aerials while they find and remove the SIM cards and GPS signal devices, which can be hidden all over the car, often in the roof or the floor.
Victimless crime?
“There had been an attitude in police forces that this is what insurance is for,” said our former police officer, “but that’s not true, car crime isn’t victimless, everyone else pays more in insurance premiums and these gangs are often into nasty other crimes as well.”
So our insurance goes up, with Confused.com reporting a rise of 58 per cent in the last 12 months, with the average cost of comprehensive cover now £924 – an increase of £338 over last year.
While the Association of British Insurers gives a by rote response to the issue saying: “The cost of the insurance for any vehicle will depend on the risk factors involved,” Thatcham highlights another issue which several others mentioned and which should strike terror into the hearts of Range Rover owners.
“As they have done for the past 100 years or more, insurers typically base premiums on risk factors relating to the driver – from driving history to age and location. However, the balance of risk is beginning to shift from driver to vehicle, disrupting the existing insurance model.”
Thatcham bases this on Battery cars, which are often written off after quite minor shunts because of the potential risk of a short circuit, the tendency for modern cars to be connected to the internet poses new challenges in time and cost to repair. Shortages of spare parts with concomitant price rises and increases in the price of used vehicles also play their parts. “The only way to address these issues is through concerted cross industry action focused on building sustainability into vehicle design, while adopting a vigilant approach to unexpected emerging repair and security challenges presented by new vehicle technologies.”
But for the moment, what can you do?
“If they want it, whatever it is, they will take it. But if you make yours harder to steal, they might just move on to the next one,” says our ex-policeman. “I’d recommend a big yellow steering lock.”
By coincidence, the winning steering wheel lock in Auto Express magazine’s comprehensive test, the Stoplock Pro Elite, is big and yellow and on sale for £47.99. If I owned a Range Rover, I’d take a serious look at one...

 

[Yoshi2210]

Theft plates were due to be fitted after Lexus had given me the run around for getting them fitted. They cancelled on me on the day of installation and I was waiting to be rebooked in. Typical. 
Police have tracked my car heading away from my house and have said it’s likely out of the country already although they still have an ANPR ping active on it. 

[larryadler]

Personally I love my Lexus, but their sales will no doubt suffer if these thefts continue, and I for one won’t be held hostage by insurance companies, so I await renewal time, and review then.

Tracker is the only Thatcham device that Insurers take into account, 😂🤣, it apparently helps to recover your vehicle from a ditch or a chop shop!

[eightk]

17 hours ago, Yoshi2210 said:

Theft plates were due to be fitted after Lexus had given me the run around for getting them fitted. They cancelled on me on the day of installation and I was waiting to be rebooked in. Typical. 
Police have tracked my car heading away from my house and have said it’s likely out of the country already although they still have an ANPR ping active on it. 

Crap isn’t it? Keep an eye out on twitter - I’ve seen various posts from Essex police dragging RXs out of shipping containers or finding chop shops storing fleets of EX300s hacked up into bits.

[eightk]

18 hours ago, malcolmw said:

…Land Rover long post…

As I understand it JLR are getting their house in order with this before they go bankrupt.

link here https://media.jaguarlandrover.com/news/2023/11/jlr-invests-vehicle-security-reduce-thefts

65,000 cars recalled so far.

So…. Lexus UK… any thoughts?

[Atish raje]

Hi my RX 450hl got stolen on 12th January. I suggest avoid this car as was so easy to steal it from front headlights. Lexus knows the problem but never send any suggestions or information. So disappointed so expensive car and so easy to get stolen. Avoid buying this or have trackers as Lexus will not help to track the car. 

[PDM]

6 minutes ago, Atish raje said:

Hi my RX 450hl got stolen on 12th January. I suggest avoid this car as was so easy to steal it from front headlights. Lexus knows the problem but never send any suggestions or information. So disappointed so expensive car and so easy to get stolen. Avoid buying this or have trackers as Lexus will not help to track the car. 

Sorry to hear this. This is the third stolen Lexus we hear about on this forum over the last few days (2 RX and one NX I believe).

Can I ask if you had the CANbus protection plate fitted? I'm guessing not from your post but many owners on here will be interested to know for sure, including myself.

What will you buy if it is not recovered?

Paul

[katabrontes]

On 10/15/2023 at 6:56 AM, Phil xxkr said:

Mine is in December so will let you know. As to Latin this is a phrase from 50 odd years ago when I started out in an engineering firm. Roughly translated it means "don't let the bxxxarda grind you down" 😊

We used InonC when I was at school.

[First_Lexus]

Just for interest…no Lexus models in this Top Ten at least! BTW love the Evoque shown being a Nissan Juke and the Range Rover Sport showing the burning car park at Luton Airport…😆

 

[Spock66]

2 hours ago, First_Lexus said:

Just for interest…no Lexus models in this Top Ten at least!

This looks like a measure in absolute numbers so Fiestas etc appear high on the list simply as they are one of the most common / popular cars in the UK by virtue of numbers (which also drives a lucrative trade in being stolen for parts).

Normalised data is a much better comparison eg thefts / number of vehicles so a direct comparison can be made. Lexus make up only a small proportion of cars in the UK, so in absolute numbers the number of cars stolen may look small, but the actual incidence of theft (or likelihood of your car being stolen) is much higher.

Whilst writing the above just received an email from LV, extract as below.

"Over the past year, there’s been a rise in thefts of the LEXUS RX 450H F SPORT AUTO. As a result, we’ve seen a large increase in the number and cost of claims we’ve received for these types of vehicles and have made the difficult decision to stop insuring them."

[PDM]

21 minutes ago, Spock66 said:

This looks like a measure in absolute numbers so Fiestas etc appear high on the list simply as they are one of the most common / popular cars in the UK by virtue of numbers (which also drives a lucrative trade in being stolen for parts).

Normalised data is a much better comparison eg thefts / number of vehicles so a direct comparison can be made. Lexus make up only a small proportion of cars in the UK, so in absolute numbers the number of cars stolen may look small, but the actual incidence of theft (or likelihood of your car being stolen) is much higher.

Whilst writing the above just received an email from LV, extract as below.

"Over the past year, there’s been a rise in thefts of the LEXUS RX 450H F SPORT AUTO. As a result, we’ve seen a large increase in the number and cost of claims we’ve received for these types of vehicles and have made the difficult decision to stop insuring them."

Andrew,

Please let us know who you end up getting insurance with in the end.

Paul

[Lincoln]

A first post on here - though a fairly regular reader on here since joining some 18 months ago. Generally I've been picking up on the excellent guidance from the forum's various luminaries on items on interest. But this insurance racket has me riled,

Further to Spock66 above, I've had a similar letter from LV=, although mine said that cars such as my 68-plate RX 450hL Luxury were the thieves' target and so no insurance offer for me for the coming year from LV=. Great pity as they've been providing quite reasonable rates to me for a couple of years now. 

It's due to run out end-February, so I'm awaiting the alleged "sweet spot" time about three weeks prior to renewal date to start searching. I've had the plates fitted, and use a steering lock as well as "deadening" the key whenever I leave the car, but no tracker as yet. Maybe I'll have to go that route as well....

I'll let you know - and meanwhile Thanks to all you experts for providing a most educational and helpful forum.

[larryadler]

It does appear that insurance companies are now deciding what we are allowed to drive. I too am with LV, so expecting similar when renewal in May. 
Please keep the site updated with renewal prices and who from to help other members.

 

[Spock66]

14 minutes ago, Lincoln said:

no tracker as yet. Maybe I'll have to go that route as well....

No tracker for me, if it's gone it's gone.

I would hate to get my car back trashed and marked as stolen / recovered impacting any future sale / trade-in as well as ongoing worry that it will only happen again.

[neos123]

My dad's rx450H was stolen 2:53am 23rd Jan from Birmingham B27 6 area

We had no idea about the security issue or the additional plates until now we are looking for information

Car was stolen via the can bus route through the front, key was in Faraday pouch although they tried that first.

My Dad is beyond gutted, no tracker fitted so hold little to no hope of it returning.

Police have done nothing other than give a crime number.....

[PDM]

4 minutes ago, neos123 said:

My dad's rx450H was stolen 2:53am 23rd Jan from Birmingham B27 6 area

We had no idea about the security issue or the additional plates until now we are looking for information

Car was stolen via the can bus route through the front, key was in Faraday pouch although they tried that first.

My Dad is beyond gutted, no tracker fitted so hold little to no hope of it returning.

Police have done nothing other than give a crime number.....

Sorry to hear this.

Please write to Lexus Customer relations and ask them why you had not been notified about the existence of the security plate. cr@lexus.co.uk

Also consider posting on here:

https://mag.lexus.co.uk/car-security-advice-and-tips/

Hope your Dad's insurance is quick to pay out.

Paul

[Lex loafer]

Here are the most stolen cars in the UK in 2023:

The UK’s most stolen vehicles in 2023

1. Ford Fiesta - 5,976 stolen

2. Ford Focus - 2,120 stolen 

3. VW Golf - 2,038 stolen 

4. Mercedes-Benz C-Class - 1,786 stolen 

5. Range Rover Sport - 1,631 stolen 

6. Range Rover Evoque - 1,489 stolen 

7. BMW 3 Series - 1,466 stolen

8. Vauxhall Corsa - 1,110 stolen 

9. Vauxhall Astra - 1,086 stolen

10. Land Rover Discovery Sport - 954 stolen

 

No Lexus to be seen, the truth is out there...

[Tickedon]

2 hours ago, Lex loafer said:

Here are the most stolen cars in the UK in 2023:

The UK’s most stolen vehicles in 2023

1. Ford Fiesta - 5,976 stolen

2. Ford Focus - 2,120 stolen 

3. VW Golf - 2,038 stolen 

4. Mercedes-Benz C-Class - 1,786 stolen 

5. Range Rover Sport - 1,631 stolen 

6. Range Rover Evoque - 1,489 stolen 

7. BMW 3 Series - 1,466 stolen

8. Vauxhall Corsa - 1,110 stolen 

9. Vauxhall Astra - 1,086 stolen

10. Land Rover Discovery Sport - 954 stolen

 

No Lexus to be seen, the truth is out there...

That’s because there were more Fiesta’s stolen than Lexus sells of a single model each year…

The key measure is how many cars per 1,000 or similar are stolen - and sadly Lexus figures don’t look so good that way. That’s what impacts on insurance risk as well. 

[Tickedon]

According to Lexus sales figures, just over 58,000 RX (&RXL) have been sold in the UK since 1999. So 1.5% of all RXs sold in the last 23 years were stolen just in that 12 month period. This would be an even higher percentage if you adjusted for the RXs no longer on the road (scrapped, wrecked, previously stolen etc.).

Apparently there were 1.5 million Fiesta’s on the road in 2023. So those theft figures work out at a 0.4% theft rate. Or about a quarter of the RX rate…

[Lex loafer]

I was quite clear: the most stolen cars in 2023. Not a Lexus on the list. 
 

 

[PDM]

1 hour ago, Lex loafer said:

I was quite clear: the most stolen cars in 2023. Not a Lexus on the list. 
 

 

This is true, Rob, but the probability of an RX being stolen is still way higher than the probability of a Fiesta being stolen.

[PDM]

2 hours ago, Tickedon said:

According to Lexus sales figures, just over 58,000 RX (&RXL) have been sold in the UK since 1999. So 1.5% of all RXs sold in the last 23 years were stolen just in that 12 month period. This would be an even higher percentage if you adjusted for the RXs no longer on the road (scrapped, wrecked, previously stolen etc.).

Apparently there were 1.5 million Fiesta’s on the road in 2023. So those theft figures work out at a 0.4% theft rate. Or about a quarter of the RX rate…

Al,  looking at sales figures of RX and RXl between 2016-2022 (mainly gen 4), there were 16460.

If the thefts were only of RX 4th gen, this is a theft rate of 5.4% per year.  Yikes.  This is an upper bound of course...