There are lots of different ways thieves could steal your car, from breaking your windows to something more sophisticated like relay theft, so you need to be proactive about protecting your car.
What is keyless entry theft?
Relay theft (otherwise known as keyless theft) is a way of stealing a car by tricking its keyless entry system.
It’s usually carried out by two thieves. One will stand by your front door, where most people store car keys, while the other stands by your car.
The thief uses a transmitter, or relay box, to extend the signal emitted by your key fob and trick the car into opening. Police say cars can be stolen in under two minutes using this system.
Which car models are vulnerable to relay theft?
Any car model with a keyless entry system could be vulnerable.
Research by Thatcham in 2019 rated cars like the Ford Mondeo, Porsche Macan and Hyundai Nexus as having ‘poor’ security for relay theft. But since then, car manufacturers have become more proactive about tackling the issue.
Ford, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi developed motion sensors in their keyless fobs to stop sending out a code when it hasn’t moved in a while.
Jaguar and Land Rover fitted ultra-wideband (UWB) radio technology in some of their newer models, which communicate over a range of frequency channels so the code can’t be traced.