Hot property: Chevy Camaro rises to top of car thieves' hit list in California
SAN FRANCISCO -- Camaros are high on thieves radars' right now in Northern and Southern California.
According to SFPD figures, there were 21 Camaro thefts reported in 2022, 46 in 2023 and 15 Camaro thefts so far in 2024.
According to Los Angeles police figures, there were seven Camaro thefts reported at this time in 2023. So far this year, 90 thefts have been reported.
Police often find stolen Camaros at illegal street takeovers or the thieves try to resell the cars.
"We quite often find them where they are turning around and posting them on social media to sell them – $40,000 - $50,000 car – to sell them for $3,000," LAPD Sgt. Arnold Castellanos said.
Authorities say car thieves are able to start Camaros through key-cloning devices that simulate key fob technology.
"Many consumers have heard of the increase in key fob cloning and the theft of other kinds of vehicles," said Carmen Balber, executive director of Consumer Watchdog. "We have seen this problem with other cars impact consumers' abilities to get auto insurance."
She says insurance companies can't just increase prices overnight.
"They have to go to the insurance commissioner, prove that these thefts have, in fact, caused increased losses and get approval for any increase in prices," she said.
Castellanos advice?
"Install some kind of kill-switch," he said. "And install a second type of GPS tracking other products like LoJack and OnStar. Those will help us help find the vehicle."
Balber says this should be a wakeup call to manufacturers, too.
"We can tell individual consumers, 'oh there's a flaw with your car, these are ways to try and get around and protect your car from getting stolen,'" she said. "But what we need is action higher up at the manufacturer level to make sure that it isn't so easy to clone those fobs to begin with."
