Anyone have their Kia stolen?

[pinball]

Just curious if lots of WTMinders had this happen.

 

[Matryoshka]

Lol, I hated my Kia. If someone had stolen that jalopy, I would've happily taken the insurance money and considered it good riddance.

[Tenaj]

My son who lives in an apartment complex just had his stolen last week.  I think it is a 2016 so we thought it was not one of the vulnerable years.  He got home from work on a Monday at 8:30 pm and had the next day off so never left ( he cannot see the parking lot from his apartment).  On Tuesday evening the police knocked and asked why his car was in an office complex on the opposite side of the city.  Window was bashed in, steering column ripped up and it has been raining (a deluge) for that 24 hours.  He is still waiting to hear what the insurance companies decision is.  Thieves left a different stolen car near his parking spot 

As an aside, it took him a week to get it out of the impound lot because they are only open from 10 to 4:30 weekdays.  How in the heck is someone supposed to deal with that!  And, no bus lines go there.  He has already taken one day off to deal with the mess - so I think he ended up taking two days off.  

[Indigo Blue]

@pinball Are you referring to the TikTok challenge where it’s some sort of accomplishment to steal a Kia? Just wondering. I don’t have one. 

Edited June 29, 2023 by Indigo Blue

[pinball]

1 minute ago, Tenaj said:

My son who lives in an apartment complex just had his stolen last week.  I think it is a 2016 so we thought it was not one of the vulnerable years.  He got home from work on a Monday at 8:30 pm and had the next day off so never left ( he cannot see the parking lot from his apartment).  On Tuesday evening the police knocked and asked why his car was in an office complex on the opposite side of the city.  Window was bashed in, steering column ripped up and it has been raining (a deluge) for that 24 hours.  He is still waiting to hear what the insurance companies decision is.  Thieves left a different stolen car near his parking spot 

As an aside, it took him a week to get it out of the impound lot because they are only open from 10 to 4:30 weekdays.  How in the heck is someone supposed to deal with that!  And, no bus lines go there.  He has already taken one day off to deal with the mess - so I think he ended up taking two days off.  

That’s frustrating all around!

[Tenaj]

16 minutes ago, pinball said:

That’s frustrating all around!

This is my very independent 21 year old so he wouldn't even let us lend him a car that we could have done without for a few days.  Instead he paid for Uber to get to and from work until the insurance company managed to snag him a rental 5 days later.  I said it was a week ago but it was really two weeks ago because there was a weekend and the Juneteenth holiday in there that slowed down the process, too.  I'm proud of him working through all of this on his own but hate that he has to go through it.

[TheReader]

My niece & her new husband had their rental Kia broken into & attempted theft while on their honeymoon (the thief/would-be thief had pulled out the ignition to hardwire it, but apparently got interrupted or the rental had safety measures that a normal Kia wouldn't have had). 

They had to spend a day swapping out the car; fortunately they had the rental insurance and the rental company was great to work with.  

[Corraleno]

I don't know anyone personally who had a Kia stolen, but it's such a serious issue at DS's university that both the local and university PDs have sent out multiple warnings and statements about it, and there have been a lot of posts on the Parents FB page complaining about their kids' Kias being stolen or broken into, as well as lots of catalytic converter thefts.

[catz]

I have a Kia and live urban and so far so good.   I do park in a garage at night but otherwise have parked all over the city for various things.  
 

We have had a few kias and have otherwise had great luck with them.  We have bought new.

[pinball]

Another problem is that Kia has been providing anti-theft update/patch software that prevents it from being started w/o a key like it used to be…but the message hasn’t  gotten out to all the would-be thieves.

So owners with the update are finding their cars smashed into and steering column tore apart but still sitting in their driveway or wherever it is parked

[stephanier.1765]

My DIL's sister had hers stolen at an apartment complex. They couldn't shut of the alarm so they kept driving around the complex until they found another one, stole it and abandoned hers.

[73349]

My local police department has offered steering wheel locks to the owners of affected vehicles in an effort to cut down on the thefts. I don't know anyone who owns one, though.

[wintermom]

23 minutes ago, 73349 said:

My local police department has offered steering wheel locks to the owners of affected vehicles in an effort to cut down on the thefts. I don't know anyone who owns one, though.

I used to have one of those! I used it in the 90's with my Toyota Corolla while in NYC. All my worldly possessions were in my car, and I was parking it on the street near a magic shop. I fully expected to walk back out from the store and find it gone, but no one took my 10 year old cheap car. Who would have believed that? 🤣

[Just Kate]

My son had an attempted theft of his Hyundai Elantra (same issue as Kia). Not sure if you want to include Hyundais in your poll. 
 

Ds had just started his freshman year in college and his car (2022) was parked in a parking garage. A police officer came to his dorm room at about 9pm on a Sunday evening to tell him his car had been broken into. We assumed at the time that it was just a regular idiot thief trying to find something in his car to steal. Two days later, dh met the company there to replace the window that was busted out. That’s when we realized that a thief tried to steal the car. We had it towed to the dealership and it took almost 2 months to fix it. Funny thing is that the 2022 doesn’t have the defect that makes it easy to steal. I joked that ds should put a sign in the back saying his car is a 2022. 
 

This happened in September of 2022 and luckily, nothing has happened since. It made me very aware that some people are crappy though. 

[MagistraKennedy]

On 6/29/2023 at 3:08 PM, pinball said:

Just curious if lots of WTMinders had this happen.

 

Yup ---- co-workers son had his Kia demolished while in the hospital parking lot. Apparently it's some sort of TikTok challenge, my co-worker said.