Stealing older model Hyundai and Kia cars and SUVs became a scary social media trend. Now, new data confirm these South Korean models are far more likely to get stolen than others.
In fact, 2015-2019 Hyundai and Kia models are roughly twice as likely to be stolen as other vehicles of similar age. The reason is many of these vehicles lack some basic auto theft prevention technology included in most other vehicles, even in those years, according to the
, but were standard on only 26% of Hyundais and Kias. Vehicles that have push-button start systems, rather than relying on metal keys that must be inserted and turned, have immobilizers, but not all models with turn-key ignitions do. Hyundai and Kia operate as separate companies in the United States, but Hyundai Motor Group owns a large stake in Kia and various Hyundai and Kia models share much of their engineering.
. “When you forcibly break the ignition, you’re causing so much damage that it’s not easy to re-VIN and resell the vehicle on the open market,” Darrell Russell, a former auto theft investigator who is now a director of operation at the National Insurance Crime Bureau, said in a statement. To re-VIN a vehicle means to change or replace its Vehicle Identification Number, an identification code made from 17 letters and digits, to make the vehicle harder to trace.
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