Maybe not a surprise: Trucks make up half of the top 10 most-stolen vehicles in Texas. But is there a reason to blame beyond the simple fact that Texas love pickups?
DALLAS — In 2024, the Chevrolet Silverado 1500 was Texas’ top vehicle choice — when it comes to thefts, anyway.
The truck accounted for a total of 6,453 of 97,246 reported car thefts in Texas over the course of the year, according to a report from personal finance content outlet FinanceBuzz that cites 2024 data from the National Insurance Crime Bureau.
Is it simply this truck’s popularity that made it the most-stolen vehicle in the Lone Star State, with over 2,000 more thefts than the runner-up? Or is there more to the story?
Turns out, there actually is.
Typically, when a vehicle is broken into, an alarm will sound in an attempt to scare the thieves off. But, as WFAA’s own Matt Howerton reported late last year, the location of the horn on most newer trucks is just behind its grill, making it easy for thieves to rip out by hook or by hand. And, with no alarm to alert onlookers of the crime unfolding in front of their eyes, thieves can then break into a car, access the onboard diagnostic port, program a new key and take off in minutes.
Thanks to this horn location issue, it’s perhaps unsurprising that five of the top 10 most-stolen vehicles in Texas in 2024 were trucks — including the GMC Sierra 1500, the Ford F150 Series, the Ford F250 Series and the Dodge Ram Pickup.
As FinanceBuzz notes, social media may be partly to blame for some of the other most-thieved automobiles on Texas’ top 10 list.
“In 2023, after TikTok videos showing an exploit that allowed individuals to start engines with just a screwdriver and USB cable, states began urging recalls for Kia and Hyundai models after an increase in thefts,” the FinanceBuzz report reads.
Car owners received some assistance through a class action settlement, in which Kia and Hyundai agreed to pay up to $145 million to individuals who owned or leased certain car models with key start features that exhibited these design flaws.
Even though the state ranked second in the country in 2024 vehicle theft volume, Texas’ total theft count dropped to 97,246 from 116,214 in 2023 — a decrease of about 16 percent. Removing Texas’ large population from the equation, its 2024 theft rate came in at 316.47 auto thefts per 100,000 people, which ranks ninth overall across the country, according to FinanceBuzz.
No matter what, it’s important that drivers are aware of the threats faced by their cars: According to FinanceBuzz, a motor vehicle was stolen every 37 seconds in the U.S. last year.
Below, we take a closer look at FinanceBuzz’s rankings for the most-stolen vehicles in Texas and in the U.S. at large.
The 10 most-stolen cars in Texas:
- Chevrolet Silverado 1500 (6,453 thefts)
- GMC Sierra 1500 (4,073 thefts)
- Hyundai Elantra (3,140 thefts)
- Ford F150 Series (2,371 thefts)
- Ford F250 Series (2,103 thefts)
- Hyundai Sonata (2,031 thefts)
- Dodge Charger (1,582 thefts)
- Kia Optima (1,580 thefts)
- Chevrolet Camaro (1,511 thefts)
- Dodge Ram Pickup (1,501 thefts)
The 10 most-stolen cars in the United States:
- Hyundai Elantra (31,712 thefts)
- Hyundai Sonata (26,720 thefts)
- Chevrolet Silverado 1500 (21,666 thefts)
- Honda Accord (18,539 thefts)
- Kia Optima (17,493 thefts)
- Honda Civic (15,727 thefts)
- Kia Soul (13,562 thefts)
- Ford F150 Series (12,952 thefts)
- Toyota Camry (12,296 thefts)
- Dodge Charger (11,452 thefts)
See the whole FinanceBuzz study here.