Thieves Stealing…Seats?

Remember the days when you could get out of your car, leave the keys in the ignition, and come back to find your car exactly how you left it?  Those days are long gone.  As it turns out, now thieves have a new target.  It's no longer the radio that they want.  They're looking for the third row seats in your SUV.

I have had my car broken into a couple times now since I've started working downtown.  The first time, I was robbed of an entire backpack full of CDs.  The next time all they took was my jumper cables.  The advice I was given was to make sure that I stow away all valuable possessions so that they are out of view.

Why would they take seats?  The third row of seating is very expensive to replace through a dealer.  They can cost up to $4000 to replace.  So thieves are stealing them and getting a pretty penny for them on Craigslist and other websites.  They can grab up to $1000 per seat there and they only take about 40 seconds to steal.

So what can you do when thieves stop taking radios, CDs, and sunglasses and start taking the seats out of your car?

According to Yahoo! there are still plenty of things you can do.  Something as simple as a bike lock will help.  But their suggestion is to engrave your vin number into the seats themselves so that if they are stolen and recovered, they can be reunited with you and your vehicle.