Originally Posted by paulri
My Civic was stolen Monday; yesterday it was found by the police. Today, it sits at my mechanic shop.
I was told by the two cops I spoke to that the Civic is a very common and easy vehicle to steal. Neither cop seemed to think that car alarms would help prevent car theft.
What do folks here think of a steering wheel lock, like
the Club? Would that deter anyone? I will try to get it repaired unless the damages are a few grand--but even if I get a new car, I think I will install it when it is parked at home, if not at work as well.
Depends on the version. The Civic, Accord, and Integra used to be among the most stolen cars in the US. That was at a time when Honda had a fairly basic key design where I heard it was possible to just jam something into the ignition hole and then turn it to start. My 1995 Integra GS-R was stolen at night. A couple of local police knocked on my door asking if I knew where my car was. Apparently they called (used the address on my registration) because it was seen driving suspiciously along with another car reported stolen at construction site that they were monitoring for theft of building materials. I was kind of depressed about it all day until I got a call from another police dept saying that my car had been recovered stripped. Took all the factory alloy wheels with high tread tires. Pulled out all the seats including the one with holes. Ripped out the instrument cluster and radio. Also took out the power steering pump for some reason even with 140k miles on it. And the kicker was that they took the cigarette lighter (never used but pushed in a few times) but left behind a $5 bill.
However, if you look at the rates for stolen cars, newer Civics and most Hondas are no longer on the top stolen car lists since they used RF keys. They're pretty difficult to defeat. The Civic and Accord are still on the most stolen car lists, but it's almost all 90s models before they started using the special keys. They are expensive to replace, but the system works. I've gotten the key copied with a standard blank. It will open the doors but I get weird stuff happening. The alarm goes off if I open the door/trunk and I don't use the RF key. I can start the car with the copy if I place the RF key near the steering column. I've heard of some people who damaged the mechanical part of the key and just used it with a copy and an original RF key on the keychain.
Quote
https://www.carfax.com/blog/10-most-stolen-cars-2015
Notably, older Accord and Civic models were at greater risk. Of the 52,244 Accords stolen in 2015, 7,944 came from the 1996 model year. Meanwhile, the 1998 Civic accounted for 7,376 of all Honda Civic thefts. NICB notes that these models were built before anti-theft technology made cars much more difficult to steal.
There are also a lot of them out there. An IHS Automotive report indicates that the average vehicle is more than 11 years old, and there are 44,000,000 vehicles on the road that are between 16 and 24 years old. Much like the current best sellers, Civics and Accords from the 1990s were popular at the time, and these older models can be a target for thieves since their parts are in demand.