It's not a secret that expensive cars are expensive to own. Insurance cost on some of the most popular new cars for sale are often higher, repair cost on pricier vehicles is never cheap. But when you compare new cars, some have an extra hidden cost, a higher rate of property and vehicle theft.
We've talked before about how cheap cars like the 94 Accord, 95 Civic, or 91 Camry are prime theft cars due in large part to their easy to break in nature and high value at a chop shop. It may have surprised many of you who expected to see these models on a used car search engine instead of a top most stolen list. Well now here is the list you probably did expect.
The study done by the Highway Loss Data Institute biased their data on insurance claims to come up with a top list of theft loses. The findings found that when you compare new cars, the Cadillac Escalade was number one. Following up the Escalade are four crew cab trucks, many of which never slip below the trucks under $35000 mark. They are the Ford 250, Silverado 1500, Ford 350, and Sierra 1500.
Shock of all shocks, the top five cars for theft all carry the latest and greatest of nice things to steal. Many carry expensive radios and GPS units which can double as an auto dealership locator. Or carry LCD displays, expensive tools in their bed, or goodies in unlocked compartments unlike what you many find in many cheap cars.
But the Escalade and a few quad cab trucks under 35000 however where not the only vehicles that made the list. The Chrysler 300, Audi A6, Mercury Mariner, and Chevrolet Equinox rounded out the list. Not so much a surprise to see the two luxury model sedans as top new cars for sale with high theft rates. Seeing the popular small and midsized SUVs at the end however is a bit of a surprise.
This is defiantly a reminder about the extra cost of expensive luxury vehicles and the need to enforce safe practices such as hiding valuables from sight and locking the car doors when you're gone. Course if you're driving an Escalade maybe you want to talk to your dealership about auto locator devices before someone drives off with your car and you see it pawned off months later on some used car search engine. The rest of us are likely free of such worries however.