An excited GM customer in Arizona was left shocked after the brand-new 2022 GMC Sierra HD that he waited six months to receive was stolen right out of his driveway after just two days of ownership.
As reported by local NBC affiliate 12 News, the thief backed a Ford tow truck into the driveway of the victim’s home in Peoria, Ariz. at around 3 a.m. on July 29th before hitching the vehicle up and driving off with it. The owner noticed he had received a notification from the MyGMC app on his phone that his OnStar theft alert had been triggered and that his vehicle had a flat tire, but about 40 minutes had elapsed before he saw the alert, allowing the thief to take off with the dream pickup that he had been waiting months to receive.
The Peoria Police Department is asking the public to keep an eye out for the thief’s vehicle, which is described as a white Ford tow truck with a black toolbox mounted to its side. A similar-looking truck was spotted in the same neighborhood as this victim, driving off with a 2018 model-year GMC Sierra HD that was later reported stolen, so it’s possible there’s a professional thief targeting full-size GM vehicles in the area. That said, police have not said if the two reported thefts are related.
While hitching a vehicle up and towing it away is a brazen way to steal a vehicle, it’s not unheard of. Many owners of modern-day vehicles are aware of common vehicle theft techniques involving key spoofing or plugging devices into a vehicle’s OBD2 port, however they may be less concerned about having their vehicle simply towed away like this. It seems as though the only way concerned motorists can prevent a towing theft is by parking their vehicle indoors, or perhaps by using a wheel clamp of some type.
Check out the news report embedded below.
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Comments
1. Back into your parking spot.
2. Set the parking brake.
You should be doing both for safety anyway. They can still tow it, but it takes a little longer, they have to circle around to the other side, or install dollies.
I wonder if the tow truck has the reverse alarm disabled…it would be hard to not wake up to that loud beeping. At the same time, a good tow truck driver (esp. one with repo experience) can hook up and get out quick…without the driver even getting out.
I also wonder if the tow truck has a tag/plate…in my area, there are several tag readers one would have to pass by…if they use these in AZ, the police could probably figure it out fairly quickly, if they even have the resources to actually put someone on it.
Seems likely there might be another news report soon about an AZ tow truck driver getting shot…
I’d like to catch someone trying to steel my truck cause he won’t survive to tell
It’s got plenty of steel already
If you don’t back your truck in you probably should be driving a Prius…
We now know who lacks skill to back a car. We also know who’s never been off the continent before and who’s been working a desk job their whole life.
“Douche parking” is standard in most of Europe, Asia, and South America. It’s part of the driver test there.
Not only that, many workplaces make employees back in. Go look at a GM factory employee parking lot, most of the cars will be backed in. UPS is another stickler for this, check out any local UPS center.
It’s not the owner’s (victim’s) fault. One should be able to park their own car in their own driveway however they want with the reasonable expectation that it won’t be stolen, damaged, etc. And when a theft happens (which should be relatively uncommon on a locked car), it’s reasonable to expect there to be a well-funded and well-supported police force to investigate and arrest the thief in short order, and then it’s reasonable to expect a court system that gets that person prosecuted and locked up (off the street to not re-offend).
You complain about what we got, but the US auto theft rate is half that of Europe. The US has much better borders and information sharing than the EU does.
While you’re complaining about enforcement, the fact that we have a single US and Canadian database of stolen vehicle VINs, something the EU struggles with, is enough to make a significant dent.
I wasn’t complaining…I was responding to the posts saying the owner should have parked differently to try and avoid this loss. My underlying point is that we should expect crime to be reduced through enforcement and prosecution of crimes, not this soft-on-criminals nonsense we’ve increasingly experienced the last few years…
I douche park my Silverado and my 5ft tall wife douche parks her 2019 Tahoe Premier every night. I guess that you can’t backup and park straight.
And to all of these people who can’t back a vehicle in.. A modern pickup with a backup camera is easier to back in than to pull into a parking space.
Sad. A vendor should develop an auxiliary motion alarm. The insurance companies should have their loss control departments on this. Can Onstar send location signals 24 x 7 x 365 even with the vehicle off and locked? If not, should consider.
OnStar has a Vehicle locator feature, it will show the location of the vehicle, and you can setup alerts if it leaves or arrives at locations setup in the app.
I’m surprised the owner of this truck didn’t check to see it’s last known location.
Also if they pay for navigation they can get live updates of the vehicles location in the OnStar App as well.
As soon as the truck went missing I would have opened my app and looked to see where it was last reported in the app.
Not just be clueless where it went as soon as the theft alarm went off.
People who tow trucks away have connections with organized crime. This obviously wasn’t some druggie or joy riding Kia Boys. Those people are smart enough to know about OnStar and other car telematics systems. They defeat it either with a pocket-sized GPS/cell jammer that can be placed next to the roof antenna, or they stop somewhere and disconnect the modem.
In fact, on these trucks, it’s ridiculously easy to get to the modem. I think they were planning on a 5G upgrade someday. You can find videos on YouTube where the guy shows you how to disconnect it in 45 seconds, no tools or panel removal required. If you were to do it with wire snips, it would take 10 seconds max.
Time to start hiding AirTags in our cars.
OnStar has the ability to track the vehicle and disable it if it is being driven. Most high end thieves will have jammers onboard to stop any signals and it will never be seen again unless you travel to Cancun one summer and spot the mayor in it.
I drove tow truck in my younger years and I wasn’t part of the mob and neither did I go around stealing cars. My tow truck of choice back then was a Chevy 1 ton with a Holmes 480 double boom double winch bed. I did hate having to assemble those damn dollie wheels though.
He was asleep for another 45 minutes.. by then truck was in 1500 pieces.
Notified 40 minutes after the fact? This makes me even more Pd’ off at GM forcing me to take a 3 year On Star subscription for $1500.
The article said it was 40 minutes before HE noticed it, not that the notification took 40 minutes…..
They aren’t forcing you to buy a thing. Walk down the road and buy another make.
Does On Star disable the engine on a thief alert, blast the horn and flash lights? If not, it should and immediately contact the local law enforcement based on the trucks location.
I believe it will ping the owner the location of the vehicle and blast the horn and lights.
GM can not even use OnStar to keep new vehicles from being stolen from the factories. One would think that 10seconds of programming and dedicated access controls would be simple this 2022 after all
This is why we can’t have nice things.
Exactly I watched a video of apiece of garbage that stole a cobra mustang and drove it with flat tires and front wheels ground off till the oil pan ground a hole in it and blew the motor. Cops woke him up and he just smiled I couldn’t believe how arrogant he was drunk and stoned with a grill on his teeth and pants off his ass
Next year GM will come out with On Star 3.0 and the vehicle will explode upon being hitched to anything non GM authorized. No worries as it will be a deal at $4000.00 a year. They even mail you an On Star decal to put on your window at no additional charge…..which is nice!
Has anyone used 4wd to avoid this issue?
It will slow them down but won’t stop them. They’ll either install dollies under one set of wheels, or crawl under the vehicle and disconnect the driveshaft. This is commonly necessary for AWD vehicles.
Ok thank you
Add a secondary GPS tracking system to your vehicle. Make sure that it is hard to find. The cost is relatively low. My work trailers have these in the damdest places and my Fleet Vehicles will have them soon.
I believe that I person stealing these trucks are just interested in GMC trucks my GMC Canyon was towed from Metrocenter parking lot. I had the keys in my pocket. I called the police and Transcend security. Neither agency had the vehicle towed. There was a person arrested for driving my truck Juan Mario Barbosa. I also have the address that he gave the courts when he bailed out of jail.
If you’re late to this article like I am there is a couple things you can do to make your vehicle less desireable to the snag and go thief.
1. Rear wheel drive, back in to your parking spot. The thief will have to drag the vehicle or take time to install dollies or remove driveshaft.
2. Lock the steering wheel with the tires fully turned in either direction. Again, they will have to dollie the front tires as the towed vehicle will not track straight behind the tow truck.