Light Work For Light Fingers

Sydney Morning Herald

Saturday July 12, 2008

Jaedene Hudson

TWO of Australia's three local car makers ranked poorly in the latest round of vehicle theft ratings. The results, released this week by NRMA Insurance, show Holden and Toyota have models in their ranges that are easy to steal.

The Toyota Aurion (pictured) is the easiest to steal in the large car class, while Holden's Viva small car was the easiest to break into, steal and rebirth in its class.

Holden's Barina hatch and sedan were the second and third-easiest cars to steal in the city car class. The Holden Epica sedan was the worst performer in the medium class. In contrast, the locally made Commodore was the second hardest large car to steal.

The theft ratings rank the ability of a car to be broken into, stolen and rebirthed.

Honda also scored poorly in the rankings. The Honda Jazz City scored the worst overall ranking in the city-car class while the Odyssey people-mover was the easiest to steal in its class.

Toyota's Tarago was the second worst in the people-mover class, the LandCruiser also second bottom, while the Yaris city car and the Corolla small car were both at the bottom end.

Many commercial vehicles also ranked poorly including the Mitsubishi Express, Ford Ranger and Mahindra Pik-up.

Subaru, BMW, Audi and Porsche were standouts, with all their models performing well.

NRMA Insurance says local makers are refusing to fit a new self-voiding identification label which costs only $2 and is one of the best ways to fight professional car theft as they cannot be counterfeited.

"We'd like to see local manufacturers follow suit and play their part in tackling the issue of professional car theft in Australia," says Robert McDonald, NRMA Insurance head of research. "The majority of manufacturers still use old aluminium compliance plates that can be simply removed, making it easy for thieves to rebirth cars, whereas the new self-voiding labels disintegrate when removed from the vehicle and are unable to be counterfeited because of the scrambled image background."

Holden says it already uses a self-voiding label on its locally made cars.

© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald

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