Wheels: Ford F-250 Replaces Cadillac Escalade as Thieves’ Favorite Target, Study Says

Sam Varnhagen/Ford Motor, via Associated Press Ford F-250 pickups, like this 2011 model, have supplanted the Cadillac Escalade as the vehicle most likely to be stolen.

Being toppled from the number one spot on a list isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Case in point: The Ford F-250 has replaced the Cadillac Escalade as the vehicle most likely to be stolen, according to the Highway Loss Data Institute.

“This list gives consumers an indication of the relative risk of their vehicle being stolen,” said Matt Moore, vice president of the organization.

The Highway Loss Data Institute is an affiliate of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and both are financd by the insurance industry. This is the first year since 2003 that an Escalade variant has not been the vehicle with the highest theft claim rates. The Escalade is now sixth on the list. Possible reasons for the drop include new and improved antitheft technology as well as declining Escalade sales, according to a statement from the Highway Loss Data Institute.

According to National Highway Safety Administration statistics, a motor vehicle is stolen every 44 seconds. The agency also reported that only 52 percent of those vehicles are recovered and nearly half of those thefts resulted from driver error, like leaving keys in the ignition.

The report lists vehicles from the 2010-12 model years, and the top 10 vehicles on the list are all large pickups and S.U.V.’s. The Ford F-250 4-wheel-drive crew cab has a claim frequency of seven per 1,000 insured vehicle years. That means that for every 1,000 insured F-250 crew cabs on the road, seven – nearly six times the average for all passenger vehicles – are stolen each year. The average for all passenger vehicles is 1.2. The high number for trucks and S.U.V.’s could be partly explained by the fact that many pickup truck theft claims are filed because equipment has been stolen from the bed of the truck and the data does not differentiate between that and the theft of the entire vehicle.

Following the F-250 as vehicles most likely to be stolen are the Chevrolet Silverado 1500 crew cab (6.7 per 1,000), the Chevrolet Avalanche 1500 (6.1), the GMC Sierra 1500 crew cab (6.0), the Ford F-350 crew 4WD (5.6), the Cadillac Escalade 4WD (5.5), the Chevrolet Suburban 1500 (5.4), the GMC Sierra 1500 extended cab (4.7), the GMC Yukon (4.5) and the Chevrolet Tahoe (4.4).

Conversely, the vehicles least likely to be stolen are small and midsize vehicles. The vehicles on the bottom of the list, which is good in this case, are all tied with a claim frequency of 0.4 per 1,000, which means that fewer than 1 per 1,000 are being stolen annually. They are the Dodge Journey 4WD, the Volkswagen Tiguan 4WD, the Audi A4 sedan, the Acura RDX, the Toyota Matrix, the Lexus HS 250 hybrid 4-door, the Honda CR-V and the Hyundai Tucson 4WD.

This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: July 10, 2013

An earlier version of this post misstated the role of driver error in causing theft. Thefts resulted from driver error, not in driver error.