The Fit missed the "Top Ten," and that's a good thing.

Top Ten Most Stolen Cars, as of 2023.

Hyundai Elantra with 48,445 thefts.
Hyundai Sonata with 42,813 thefts.
Kia Optima with 32, 204 thefts.
Chevrolet Silverado 2500 with 23,721 thefts.
Kia Soul with 21,001 thefts.
Honda Accord with 20,895 thefts.
Honda Civic with 19,858 thefts.
Kia Forte with 16,209 thefts.
Ford F150 Series Pickup with 15,852 thefts.
Kia Sportage with 15,749 thefts.

Hyundai/Kia made it easy to steal their cars.

 

It seems like you need to know how many of each model are on the road before these numbers mean much.

There are (waving hands) millions of Accords, Civics, F150s, and Silverados in the wild, so their presence on a list like this isn't surprising. I don't know much about sales figures for Hyundai and Kia -- their commonality here is troubling but is it bad or really bad? I can't tell without knowing how many sales they have.

 

Sales are irrelevant. Kias and Hyundais are easy to steal. Some cars are stolen because of demand for them. Others are stolen because it's so easy.

Hyundai and Kia thefts soar more than 1000% since 2020 | CNN Business

 

I have heard that Hyundai and Kia have a theft problem and am not arguing against that.

What I am saying is that if you're evaluating theft risk the number of sales definitely matters because it is the denominator used to determine theft rate.

Let's say that Car A has been stolen 50,000 times and Car B has been stolen 10,000 times. Car A is obviously stolen 5x more often, right? How can you tell?

What if there have been 5 million sales of Car A and 1 million sales of Car B? In this scenario, A and B are stolen at the exact same rate.

What if there have been 5 million sales of Car A and only 100,000 sales of Car B? In this scenario, Car B is 10x more likely to be stolen than Car A.

You have to know sales to determine theft rate.

 

Right, but a Kia would not be my first choice for a new car.

 

Ironically, we just replaced my wife's 2010 Kia Soul (post-Kia-antitheft-update) with a 2023 Soul and our insurance went down about $15 a month. Anecdotal, I know, but we expected a bump based on a much newer/more expensive vehicle.

 

It was nice of them to lower it.

 

I think actuarial math is more complicated than that. It’s quite crazy really. In my area, your rate can change depending on many factors: age, street you live on, occupation, driving habits etc. I’m not convinced theft rate has anything to do with it. It would be more “fair” if that’s the case but if an insurer had to replace 50 stolen cars A (sales 100 000) and 5 cars B (sales 500), it has still cost the insurer more money at the end of the day to insure car A.

another important factor is technology like side view mirrors with cameras and backup cameras. When a snow plow driver messes up and rips off 10 side view mirrors on a narrow street, instead of 400$ for a mirror, now it’s a mirror with a camera a calibration procedure to ensure the lane assist features work etc etc. This has an impact so I’ve been told.

just to show how bonkers it is, my rate could be 70$ a month and upon renewal, go up to 95$ for no apparent reason, even with no traffic infractions or claims. Call another company and their rate will be 65$ a month. Apparently it depends on the amount of payout a company has had to do on a type of car. If your current company happened to have to pay many claims for your type of car the previous year, your rates will go up. Another company coincidentally didn’t pay many claims, their rate might be better. It’s really a fools errand to try and understand the logic.

the most stolen car in my area used to be the CRV but now it’s the RAV4. The most important is that it must not be hybrid. The reason is that the thieves export the cars to Africa and I guess they don’t have the charging infrastructure and hybrids may be too hard to repair and maintain over there. So gasoline only cars are what they are after. Some poor lady had her CRV stolen 7 times and the insurers refused to insure her. The government consumer protection agency had to step in and force her last insurance company to insure her at the last rate they gave her!