Grand Theft Mopar: Why Do Thieves Target Challengers & Chargers So Much?
Challenger and Charger owners have to block them, as thieves push them away with other vehicles.
The odds are good that if you own a modern Dodge Challenger and Charger you know that they are among the most commonly stolen cars in the United States. Hellcat cars are particularly popular due to the high price of many key components, but Scat Pack, R/T and V6 models are key targets of car thieves in several metropolitan areas around the country. One of the hottest stolen car markets is Metro Detroit, making the Challenger and Charger popular targets in an area plagued with vehicle theft.
We have spoken to many Challenger and Charger owners in the Metro Detroit area, along with watching many videos of these cars being stolen in and around the Motor City. Some owners recommend using a Faraday key fob protector which eliminates the concern of someone using a high tech device to clone the signal to communicate with your vehicle. That can never hurt, but in the long run, the best way to protect your modern Mopar muscle car is to block it in, even if in a garage.
How Thieves Steal the Challenger and Charger
Some people believe that cars like the Hellcat variant of the Dodge Challenger and Charger are being stolen by high tech thieves who have gadgets that clone your key fob information. While those devices do exist and some Dodge cars are stolen using those high tech gadgets, thieves don’t even have to use those gadgets.
In many cases captured on surveillance cameras of vehicle owners, the cars are literally pushed away by the thieves. I am not going to go into great detail on how to steal a Dodge Challenger or Charger, but the key issue is the fact that there is no steering lock system. That means that once the car is rolling, it can be steered relatively easily. Thieves break into the car, get them into neutral and get them rolling down the driveway.
Once the car gets to the road, the thief is able to turn the car with the lock-free steering system, allowing an SUV to come up from behind and push it out of sight of the cameras. Literally every video that we have seen over the past year in Metro Detroit shows these cars being stolen like this. In the case of the Charger, thieves often go in through the rear window while Challenger thieves go through the sunroof or a front window.
You can watch a Charger being stolen in Detroit in the video below. This car appears to have been stolen without any high tech items. It was simply pushed away.
Once out of sight, it is believed that the cars are pushed by the SUV into an enclosed trailer. In some cases, the stolen Dodge Charger or Challenger turns up less than 24 hours later, often dumped in desolate, urban areas. In those cases, the car is stripped down to little more than the bare chassis. In many cases, the vehicles are never recovered and in the rarest cases, the cars are found intact, having seemingly been stolen for nothing more than a joyride.
