Toyotas Are <i> the</i> Favorite of Car Thieves

By STEVE EMMONS and MARIA L. La GANGA

March 5, 1987 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writers

What is the motor vehicle most sought after by California car thieves?

The Toyota, be it car or pickup truck, so dominates the stolen-car market that, in the words of one major insurance company investigator, it is “astounding--I mean, it’s terrible.”

More than 90% of Toyotas stolen in California are recovered, but most have been stripped of parts--mainly expensive interior features such as stereos, seats and door panels, for which there is a ready market, police say.

And who buys the stolen parts? Police suspect many eventually are bought, knowingly or unknowingly, by insurance companies having to replace other stolen stereos, seats and door panels.

Auto theft investigators in central Orange County, where the heists have been particularly acute, said Toyotas simply are easier to steal because of weak door and ignition locks.

A spokesman for Toyota Motor Sales USA Inc. in Torrance denied that appraisal, although he conceded that Toyota engineers have been working with the California Highway Patrol to add anti-theft features to current and future Toyota models.

Both insurance and police officials estimate thefts of Toyotas has been extraordinarily high for at least 18 months.

Neither the state Department of Motor Vehicles nor Toyota USA could say what portion of the motor vehicles registered in California are Toyotas.

But the California Highway Patrol’s statewide tally of vehicles stolen in 1986 lists various models of Toyota automobiles as the first, third, fourth, seventh and ninth most often stolen cars and Toyota pickup trucks as the most often stolen personal truck or van.

Irvine Police Investigator Dennis Howe said that during one six-to-eight-week period last summer, there were 19 car thefts and five attempted thefts in two of Irvine’s communities.

“Out of the 19 thefts, 15 were Toyotas. Out of the five attempts where the car wasn’t stolen, none of them was a Toyota. . . . To me, it kind of says one type of car could be easier to take than others,” Howe said.

Santa Ana Police Investigator Perry Francis said Toyotas are the most frequently stolen vehicles in his city, as well.

“The ignition is put together with a very, very soft aluminum alloy and you can break that and pull it out rather quickly,” Francis said.

One police investigator, who asked not to be identified, said he has interviewed “many, many car thieves, and many of them talk specifically about the ease of the Toyota being stolen compared to other cars.”

He said the door is easily unlocked by slipping a “Slim Jim,” a thin strip of metal, between window and door and tripping the door lock inside the door.

He said the door locks themselves are easily dislodged with a punch or pulled out with a “slam hammer,” a device that screws into the lock, then yanks the lock out by the roots. “The same thing can be used on the (Toyota) ignition lock itself, and when that pops out, it also takes out the locking mechanism for the steering wheel. In other cars, that mechanism is separate,” he said.

A Toyota USA spokesman denied that the firm’s vehicles are more prone to theft than others. “Our cars are susceptible to the same methods of theft as everybody else’s out there. The structure of our door locks and window seals are exactly the same as everybody else’s out there,” he said.

At the same time, he added, “We’ve been working with the California Highway Patrol and our engineers in Japan to develop some programs and features that would make our vehicles much more theft resistant.”

He said that Toyota Supras starting with the 1986 1/2 models have a theft-deterrent system as standard equipment. “It triggers an alarm (flashing lights and horn) when a door or rear hatch or hood is attempted to be opened without a key, and it cuts the ignition circuit to keep the engine from being started.”

Toyotas continue to be hot theft items, however. An auto theft investigator for one of the largest insurance companies in California said that in his Southern California region, “we had 10 total theft claims reported to us over the weekend, and seven of them were Toyota pickup trucks.”

Investigator Howe in Irvine said that the thieves typically go for the more expensive Toyota automobiles--Supras, Celicas and MR-2s.

Thieves steal the seats, door panels, stereos, stereo equalizers, alloy wheels and tires, Howe said. Mechanical parts are almost never taken, according to Investigator Francis in Santa Ana.

Easy to Enter

The reason, Howe said, is that the car is easy to enter and that some of the interior parts, such as the seats are worth plenty and sometimes hard to get from dealer parts departments.

At one Orange County Toyota dealership, a new set of seats for a Supra would cost “probably close to $3,000,” a spokesman said.

“You might be able to get cheaper ones used,” the parts clerk volunteered. He said he knew of a firm that reconditions seats from junked Supras, “and you can’t tell them from new.”

That would not be surprising, Howe said.

“If you look at the circle on this kind of an operation, you find a car gets stolen. It’s recovered, but stripped. . . . Maybe Toyota tells the insurance company they can’t get them the parts for a while. Right away the insurance company then finds a source that can replace all those parts. If Toyota didn’t supply them, where did they come from?

“The insurance companies, a lot of them, say they don’t like doing business that way, but they have no other choice. They don’t want to pay $16,000 to total the car just because they can’t get it fixed for $5,000.”

Howe said an auto theft ring composed entirely of juveniles, 20 or more of them, stole Toyota parts in his and other central Orange County cities last summer before the ring was broken up.

He said it began when a teen-age car thief discovered how to use a slam hammer, “and he held a class for the others.”

The gang, concentrating on Toyotas, stole three to four cars a night, two to three nights a week, for about two months in Irvine, Laguna Hills, Santa Ana, Fountain Valley and Westminster, Howe said. “We never found out how they disposed of the stuff.”

Crook’s First Buyer

But, he added, “basically a crook finds his first buyer, who pays him very little for (the stolen parts). Then he goes to a junkyard and sells them to a junkyard. The yard then may sell these parts to a specialty dealer who deals in specialty replacement parts.

“The insurance company is going to get a receipt from the specialty house to show they paid So-and-So Interiors, and So-and-So Interiors has one from John the Junk Man, and John says they came from that car over there, even if he’s sold 18 sets of interiors out of the same car.”

In the past, such parts have not had serial numbers, but many such valuable parts are to be engraved with the car’s identification under new federal regulations.

“That,” said one insurance company source, “will do a lot to cut down on this sort of thing.” MOTOR VEHICLES STOLEN MOST OFTEN IN 1986 Automobiles

1 Toyota Celica ST, 1978-87

2 Volkswagen sedan, ‘58-67

3 Toyota Corona, ‘68-77

4 Toyota Corona, ‘78-87

5 Chevrolet Camaro, ‘78-87

6 Volkswagen sedan, ‘68-77

7 Toyota Corolla, ‘68-77

8 Datsun 210, ‘68-77

9 Toyota Celica ST, ‘68-77

10 Olds Cutlass, all models Pickup trucks or vans

1 Toyota, ‘78-87