I have a friend who purchased a base model 2006 Civic hybrid. For the past 18 months she indirectly influenced me to trade in my SUV for a Prius hybrid. I say indirectly because I never actually considered 'buying a hybrid until I rented a Prius and drove it from an airport to my hotel. From that point forward, I was no longer a Toyota consumer but a Prius advocate. One of the more annoying aspects of hearing about her hypermiling gas mileage experiences was her paranoia of someone stealing her car because it was saving her so much money in comparison to other cars she owned. Now that I own a Prius I wonder when will the thieves catch up to the Prius technology. I saw on another posting awhile back that the Prius is low on the D.O.T. list of stolen cars/parts. I believe all of us who are safety conscious will prevent the common thief from stealing our cars using common sense. My question is: Given the 'gas crisis', I believe we all know is now the 'gas reality', it would seem the real hybrid : thieves would relish, the Prius, would be at the very top of the list of cars to steal. I now find myself parking between cars in the City as opposed to parking where a space is open in front of me or behind me to prevent someone from loading my Prius on a flatbed truck, to steal the car while negating the safety and alarm features on my car. I wonder if the members know whether Prius are being stolen in Europe or other countries where they are sold and gas prices hover just below $10.00 per gallon? Or does the Prius electric system (inverter) or other components make it too risky to steal? Sophisticated thieves learn how to steal luxury cars in seconds...can we expect them to learn how to steal a hybrid without risking electrocution?
There were a rash of headlight thefts, but stealing a Prius isn't an easy "joyriding" sort of theft. It would take quite an investment. There are a lot easier cars to steal. The market for used parts isn't that great either.
The cars that are stolen the most often are for parts to be sold to seedy repair shops. The age of the most stolen cars are about 10 years old. It's been said several times here that cars are stolen for the parts, not to used as a car. That said - it's always in the back of my mind too...
The Prius has a built in immobilizer; even the models that do not have the alarm have the immobilizer. This makes stealing a Prius more challenging than most other vehicles. The most practical way to heist a Prius is to hoist it onto a flatbed truck. You will have to drag it, sliding the front tires because the park mechanism is electronic (04 -08 models) and again, the immobilizer is looking for the key fob so its not gonna let you shift into neutral. Now that you have your stolen Prius, how are you going to make it operable again? Replace the immobilizer? That's gonna be expensive and the dealer is going to be asking some questions. Program some new key fobs? I'm pretty sure you will need one of the original keys to do this too. Strip it down for parts? Maybe, but the car so far has been very reliable, so you probably won't have as much demand for used Prius parts as some other, more easily stolen vehicles.
People who steal cars would also likely steal gas... as mentioned above, the parts market isn't there, and the steal-to-order export market doesn't seem to be demanding them yet.
Try to picture the thief who steals a Prius for the first time... he'll spend a lot of time scratching his head trying to figure out how it works.
Stealing gas from a Prius is not very profitable nor easy. Around here I've read cars all over the place are having holes punched in the gas tank and the fuel drained out the bottom. One problem... the Prius tank has that dang rubber bladder, might be hard to punch through. The other.... Let's see, a Prius with maybe 5 gallons in the tank and 5 inches ground clearance or a large pickup truck with 20 or 30 gallons and over a foot of clearance. Which tank would you try to punch?
