In the past six months in the Bay of Plenty, nearly 400 vehicle thefts have been reported. While a wide range of makes and models are included, there are several that are popular with thieves. Does your car make the list? David Beck reports.
The vehicles stolen most often inBay of Plenty in the past six months have been revealed and police have noted a move away from the norm.
Four of the top five most stolen vehicles are utility vehicles (utes).
Coming in first is the Toyota Hilux, 32 of which have been stolen in the past six months.
Second is the Ford Courier with 26, third is the Holden Commodore - the only non-ute in the top five - with 14 stolen.
Rounding out the top five are the Nissan Navara and Mazda Bounty utes with 13 each.
Rotorua Police Inspector Brendon Keenan said police had noted a change in the types of vehicles targeted by thieves in the Bay of Plenty In recent months.
"Historically, smaller vehicles have been the focus, however, utility vehicles, especially Toyotas and Fords, are now targeted more frequently," he said.
"In some cases, we know that stolen utes have been used in burglaries to force entry into the building, otherwise known as ram-raids."
Keenan said often the older models of these utes were easy to break into and the manual versions were attractive to thieves who wanted to participate in road-related offending such as "burnouts".
"Any older vehicle, no matter what the model or make, typically will not have an immobiliser or alarm, which will make it susceptible to thieves."
Inspector Brendon Keenan says police have noted a change in the types of vehicles being stolen in Bay of Plenty during the last six months. Photo / NZME
Western Bay of Plenty Neighbourhood Support manager Bruce Banks was not surprised by the stolen vehicle data.
"Car theft certainly has been a problem here recently, just as it has for most of the country by the look of it," he said.
"Locally, from what I've seen there has been a particular increase around the Mount, Te Puke, and Pāpāmoa. Tauranga South experiences it as well.
"All it takes is a little group of youths who want to steal and joyride cars and off it goes."
Western Bay of Plenty Neighbourhood Support manager Bruce Banks. Photo / NZME
Banks said utes were stolen in some areas but they still noticed a lot of small automatics such as Mazda Demios and Nissan Tiidas being stolen.
"Those little four-door saloons are always easy to drive and always easy to pinch. I think the youth find stealing those very attractive."
He said a major issue had noticed was so many people used their garages as storage spaces and parked their cars on the road, making it easier for thieves who were ultimately looking for the easiest, quickest theft.
"A lot of those cars are from around the year 2000 and don't have alarms and often they are parked on the road.
"Some of the new suburbs like Pāpāmoa East have very little secure parking off the street and very little garaging. Everything is left on the road outside. If you have a three-bedroom house and three or four cars, you often can't even park outside your own house.
"It's amazing how many of us have what is often our second-most-valuable possession parked outside on the road, with a bunch of other stuff dumped in the garage."
For eight years, Rotorua resident Jake Krebs was the proud owner of a Ford Courier ute.
In March this year, that ute was stolen from his home in Lynmore and used in a ram-raid at the GAS service station on State Highway 30, Lake Rotoma.
Krebs was at work when the police called and asked him if he knew where his ute was.
He told them, as far as he knew, it was at home and that is when they informed him it had been stolen and used in a ram-raid.
Earlier this year, Jake Krebs had a call from police to say his Ford Courier ute had been stolen and used in a ram-raid. Photo / Andrew Warner
"I was pretty gutted, it was a good ute. I'd had it since 2014 and kept it in pretty good condition," he said.
"They ended up recovering the ute but it was too smashed up and it was a write-off. They ram-raided in Rotoma, then it was in a police chase in Kawerau. It was pretty smashed up."
Krebs said knowing the car he'd owned for so long had been used in such a way felt invasive.
While the vehicle was covered by insurance, it took some time to get that and a new car sorted out.
"Knowing that these little b****** came on to my house, that's what p****** me off, that they'd come on to my property and just take what they want. It was right by the house, probably six metres away from my room.
"It didn't really surprise me, because these sorts of things are so common now, but it's still not what you want to hear first thing in the morning."
His new car has an alarm system and he has had alarms installed in other cars at the house in an effort to prevent further thefts.
"It is sad that we have to do that but we had to up the security a bit."
NZ Police advice to prevent car theft
• Lock your vehicle.
• If you can keep it in a garage, do so.
• Install an alarm or steering wheel locks to vehicles if they don't have them.
• Use sensor lighting and CCTV to monitor areas where vehicles are typically parked.
• Consider parking susceptible models in behind newer vehicles on the driveway to prevent them being removed.
• Never leave valuables in your car, especially wallets, cash, bank cards etc.
