Some Low Life Stole my Wife's 2020 Scat Pack Charger this Morning.
 

I am not very happy at the moment, she special ordered it just the way she wanted it!
They took it from her workplace parking lot. She parked it around 5:10am and it was gone by the time her coworker arrived at 5:30am. My opinion of thieves can't be written on this forum!
What sucks is it only had 26K miles on it, and they stopped making them late last year so it can't be replaced new.

dumb question maybe but me not being a thief, how do you steal a car with the computer ignition system? did they haul it away with one of the repo wreckers?? any cameras on the parking lot?

Is why it was called a Scat Pack :bolt: seems to me a suit may be warranted on a design promoting lowcost-theft.

The Mopar Nocar club is growing rapidly around here.
https://forums.maxperformanceinc.com...d.php?t=871401

These Mopar's and Jeeps are one of the most stolen cars out there.

Jeff, does the car have an onboard modem that it can be tracked with?

Keith unfortunately not that I am aware of.

I never even thought about it being stolen from her work, well lit and she parked it by the employee entrance that usually is pretty busy, but she starts about 30 minutes before the rest of her shift. So they must have spent some time casing her habits, or got lucky. With the dense fog this morning I don't think the security camera's will show much more than her orange car leaving the parking lot a few minutes after it arrived. She works at a Fedex Freight location so quite a bit a traffic.

She just realized that she had one over her hand knit shawls in the back seat, $200 worth of materials and at least 80 hours of her time. She is just devastated about that, and the car is the 1st one she actually picked all the options and colors for. really sucks, but at least they didn't car jack her.

Keith unfortunately not that I am aware of.

I never even thought about it being stolen from her work, well lit and she parked it by the employee entrance that usually is pretty busy, but she starts about 30 minutes before the rest of her shift. So they must have spent some time casing her habits, or got lucky. With the dense fog this morning I don't think the security camera's will show much more than her orange car leaving the parking lot a few minutes after it arrived. She works at a Fedex Freight location so quite a bit a traffic.

She just realized that she had one over her hand knit shawls in the back seat, $200 worth of materials and at least 80 hours of her time. She is just devastated about that, and the car is the 1st one she actually picked all the options and colors for. really sucks, but at least they didn't car jack her.

That sucks. These Chargers, Challengers and Camaro ZL1s are some of the most stolen car right now.

That's terrible. hopefully insurance comes across...

I'm definitely getting air tags...or something...getting really bad out there

Sorry to hear about this and hope they find the car. I follow a local crime report in my area that not only shows current crimes, but people who are apprehended. What's shocking is the rap sheets these criminals have and how often they're repeatedly released even with some pretty serious charges pending. It seems in MN at least, people can go on a really long criminal run before facing any real jail time. Car theft is up over 50% here last year from PY I believe and the main targets are still the Kia and Hyundai

What is scary ... I'm guessing they had their eye on it for a while. Probably followed her, saw where she worked, made their plans.

Hate to say it, but in this day and time, if you live anywhere near a city, get yourself some econo-mobile for daily transportation, that last thing you want is to draw attention to yourself. Police don't care if it's a $500 car, or a $50,000 car ... to them it's just a stolen car, they aren't going to spend any big resources on recovery.

Very sorry to hear this. The feeling of personal violation is hard to get over. I too have heard that these are the most stolen cars out there right now. Fortunately I have never had this problem but then again all of my cars are POS! They would return them promptly!
One would think with todays computer reliance in a vehicle that theft recovery would be pretty easy, but those in charge dont care.
Bmore has a very high car theft rate, mostly kia and hunday. The answer is to sue the manufacture for making them easy to steal, not to deal with the criminals whose average age is 14!
I am hoping for the best outcome in your case. Good Luck.

That so unfortunate and infuriating. The demand for these cars has only gotten higher as the prices rose and the announcement of the end of production. One thing is obvious, it’s only going to get worse. If you own one, protect it!

Thanks for all the kind words, I don't hold much hope of it being recovered, it is probably parts or 5 states away by now.

Yesterday was a very foggy day here, and in the dark the security camera picked up a dark shadow moving towards the blurry car, and lass than 2 minutes later the bright orange car drives away. Sucks but it is what it is.

Sucks to hear that, Ive had a couple friends have their cars stolen from their own driveways but they were normal cars, not muscle cars or high dollar SUVS or computer ignition modern cars etc... both were recovered but not in the same condition before they were stolen.

I gotta ask though since both my friends cars had this situation... were the keys in it? My friends cars had the keys left in it as many people do in low crime or rural areas, many people leave their houses unlocked too. The police said its not considered grand theft auto if the owner leaves the keys in it, or something along those lines.

Hope she gets her car back.

The new Chargers and Challengers are comically easy to steal.

I've been shopping insurance quotes for a 2015 HC Challenger, and even though I live in an are where there's no crime, insurance is still expensive.

No she is very anal about locking her cars, and we still have both of the key fobs for it. So no the fobs was not left in the car. I agree that they seem to be as easy to steal as Kia's & Hyundai's

I did a little looking online, and was surprised at how often they are stolen. There are a bunch of news stories but they all say pretty much the same thing. Unfortunately the stories don't say anything about what happens to the cars - are they resold, parted out, shipped overseas or what.

Two Dodge muscle cars, the Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat and Dodge Charger HEMI, once again top the Highway Loss Data Institute’s list of the most-stolen vehicles for model years 2020-22. Meanwhile, a viral trend targeting Hyundai-Kia vehicles propelled four Kia models into the top 20.

Theft claims for the Charger SRT Hellcat were more than 60 times more frequent than the average for all 2020-22 models, relative to their numbers on the road, while theft claims for the Charger HEMI were more than 20 times higher than average, HLDI’s latest whole-vehicle theft report shows.

It's not just the kids or chop shops anymore...it's a booming business unfortunately:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toron...-uae-1.7083615

Sorry to hear that Jeff. Hope your insurance settlement is fair and trouble free.

Truly very sorry about your wife's car and her belongings.

Shocking how easily these things can be stolen with today's tech that goes into them.
And the tech is their soft spot . UnReal

When did we start asking for push button start cars ?
I wasn't there
The YouTube videos are amazing and fast results.

"The Club" with the front wheels turned all the way to one side will probably make them pass to the next easy prospect.

Never leave a car like this unattended or without someone in the passenger seat, probably with a 2nd amendment piece. Drive a 10+ year old econobox for work/errands and leave this in the garage for weekend fun. Can't drive/have anything nice anymore these days.

Thanks for all the good thoughts, we might have some good news on the car, the Detroit Police have recovered the car, but all I know about its condition is that the rear window is broken, and the license plate is gone. Fingers crossed that that is the worst of the damages.

Well the car was recover in much better condition than I could have hoped for, but it won't start so the drive train condition is unknown. The passenger side rear door window is broken, the interior is dirty, damp, and smells like smoke, the key fobs don't work, and there is damage to the shifter and center console, and some wires are hanging down under the glove box. The plate was actually in the trunk, as was her hand knit shawl.
Actually feeling very lucky, we were able to get the car out of the Detroit city impound 5 minutes before they closed at 3:00pm, and it was towed to our local body shop. Pending the inspection of the chassis, and paint condition. I think it was the best possible outcome! Whew!

Very sorry to hear this- as you might have seen we just went through this.

If you don’t want to keep the car you can have the car tested for drugs, if they find any residue the car I hear they are scrapped for fear of fentanyl. Most of these thugs ride around smoke weed.

Also ask for an oil analysis and fight for depreciated value.

Drive a stick car, most of these morons doing this today couldn't drive one to save their lives!

Jeff,
Sorry this happened to you guys. I have seen a lot of people talking about
https://www.iglausa.com/igla-anti-theft looks like there is a place in Pontiac that installs them.
Glad that you did at least get it back in somewhat one piece. I have seen videos of shells dropped off in the middle of the road up there.

Glad to hear you got it back, and might be able to get it returned to acceptable condition, Jeff!

My '21 Scat Pack widebody Challenger is a stick. The stick cars do not have remote start but are still a push button start. The stick cars do not have cylinder deactivation(MDS) either.

Most of my fun cars are manuals, the Solstice, Firebird, Astre, and even the 73 Lemans wagon. But this is my wife's DD so a Manual trans was not an option. Plus this is the car she wanted and she actually ordered it and paid for most of it. I will have to look into a anti theft system, but it will have to leave the remote start working or she will not go for it.

Here are the promised Pictures, I am still really amazed at the cars condition, at 1st glance it looks like they just took it for a joy ride and ran it until it was out of gas. They went thru everything, and left a bunch of snack wrappers in the car. But dependently not much a old woman considers necessary in her car was of interest. The Battery is still in the car but is dead, evidently the alarm system was going off when it was towed in Thursday afternoon. Next week the show will see if they can reteach the Key fobs, and get it started, they are trying to trickle charge the battery over the weekend. Fingers crossed that nothing was damaged on the drive train. One good thing is the winter tires don't have much grip in the rain so really abusing the engine would have been difficult.
The day consisted of 2 hours on the phone with the Detroit Police Impound Lot to find what location it was at, returning the rental car as my employer was Kind enough to let me use our company Pool car for 2 weeks (my employer does treat us better than any company I have ever worked for) Diving an hour to the Grand River Ave impound Lot, Dealing with the short staffed but actually very friendly lot staff. Waiting 2 hours for our turn in line. Paying the $245 impound fee. (that will be reimbursed by the insurance Co.) Finding out it wouldn't start and getting a roll back truck willing to take it 45 miles to our local repair shop.
I considered we were very luck, it was about 40F out, very warm for late January in S/E Michigan. We were actually the last people to get their car out yesterday before they closed up at 3:00pm, The rain held off until we got the car unloaded at the Body shop, and the Body shop owner who I have known for 30+ years paid the tow bill and said he will just add it to the insurance claim. I think it went as smooth as it could have, with a better than I could have hoped for result.
Thanks for all the support and well wishes everyone!

Looks like after some minor repairs and a good detailing job she’ll be good to go.

You’re lucky considering the circumstances, hope it all turns out well. :)

Good to see you got the car back, & in pretty decent condition.

Do you know how it was stolen if it was locked & no key fobs in the car? or for the ones commenting that these cars are very easy to steal, how are they being stolen without keys?

Im curious to know just to know, but more so my friend just bought a 2017 SRT 8 black on black challenger, & also has a 2019 SRT8 jeep grand cherokee he added soem trackhawk mods to.... would like to warn him about these cars being so easy to steal.

One way I've read about is that the thieves use an antenna ring to pickup the signal given off by the key fob. They then use a device to emulate the captured key fob signal to unlock and start the car and drive off.

Putting your fob inside a metal box or something akin to a Faraday cage to block the signal should be done to keep thieves from doing this. I’ve seen special bags being sold that are made to shield them. Too many people hang their keys near their front door and need to be more careful especially with these fobs.

some tips.
 

May be of some help,don't know.

Dodge Announces Three New Theft Protection Measures

https://www.dodgegarage.com/news/art...-measures.html

They use an app on their android phone - and a USB cable plugged into one of your USB ports in the car.
About 15-20 seconds later your car is gone by-by

It defeats/over rides all the Dodge measures.
Lots of YouTube's on the subject and demonstrations.
It is UnReal

"The Club" on the steering wheel and wheels turned to full lock left or right is said to be the best deterrent .
They see that - and your car gets left alone , they go to the next easy target.

Deleting all your USB ports foils them too.
But they won't know that until after they have gained entry.
You want them to be able to see that your car already knows their game , so that it doesn't get vandalized by their attempt.

13-14 year old kids are even doing this just to see if they can - and then just joyride.
For a cheap thrill .

Doesn't matter if you have a V6 or a Hellcat Demon JailBreak Hemi.
They are all so easy they will take any of them just for the cheap thrill.

Its not just for thieves who intend to make profit off the car.

If you own any of these pushbutton start cars you better start doing your homework and taking the right steps.
Or be next.

The price of "progress". I want the 70's back.

Dang computers don't belong

Are you concerned they thrashed yer tranny?

Still on warranty I guess...

Same here..

Update

Well some good news, the Chrysler rep was able to get the original key fobs to work again! The car would turn over but not start until 2 gallons of gas was put in the tank, so that verified that they thieves did run it out of gas and them abandon it.
They were able to wash the car and get it on a lift, the front and rear facia's are damaged, and the passenger side floor board has a big dent, the windshield is cracked (strange that I did not notice that but it is visible on the picture of it on the flatbed) and one of the lower skid plates? is missing. Also some minor scrapes and small dents on the passenger side.
The new rear passenger door window is supposed to arrive today, no codes are being generated by the engine management system, and the shop drove it for a bit to get the tank filled. So hopefully no major surprises left to find. Fingers crossed that is the worst of it.

Well that is good news for you and the wife. At least it looks like it will be drivable with a few repairs. I have a club on my 79 C10 just because it is a short bed truck. It is almost comical how much technology goes into these cars but the very basic things like theft deterrent is such an afterthought. Well someone said they want the 70's back well I give you the club which is from the 80's and the best we can come up to stop car thieves.

We picked up the car from the body shop a couple of days ago, they did a very good job on it. They had to wait 3 weeks for a small trim piece for the passenger rear door. The Wife is very Happy to have "Hot Honey" back! Thanks everyone for all the support and good wish's!

looks sharp...for a dodge...glad it worked out

I read this thread the day you created it, but missed the update a couple days later;
I am glad to read you got your car back, and that the damage was minimal - and that you now got it back.

I opened but haven't read the linked Dodge "new theft protection measures" - but that seems to have potential... (post #39 aside)

Glad to see y’all got the car back and cleaned up!

Thanks for reminding me about the anti theft upgrade! I will have to see if it was installed when the Chrysler rep had to come in and delete and reload the starting and anti theft programs. I would hope that they did install the upgrade but better to be sure.
I did look into various anti theft devices, but all the electronic ones either required installing something thru the dash, or they would disable the remote start feature. And she would not accept either of those options. I did purchase a steering wheel lock for her to use, I had not thought about having the wheels turned full lock when it is installed, good tip.

Thanks again everyone!

LoJack or Apple Air Tag hidden in the car.