U.K. Thieves Are Stealing Headlights From Luxury Cars

The whole isn’t always greater than the sum of its parts.

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“Eye-snatching,” or headlight theft, is becoming more prevalent in the British Isles, according to Fleetworld . That’s because the part is easier to steal than an entire vehicle, and can still net the thief thousands of dollars—especially if it comes from a premium automobile.

Like so many other elements of the vehicles we drive today, headlights have made several evolutionary leaps since the turn of the century. They are more complex than ever thanks to developments like LED matrix and adaptive technologies. Unsurprisingly, that means that the costs of the part have risen dramatically. Carscoops reports that a single headlight for the new BMW 4 Series costs $3,000, while the same part in the Audi Q7 , and SUV that starts at $60,500, cost $4,300 each. That’s right, the two headlights from the new Q7 cost more than 10 percent of the full vehicle.

Unsurprisingly, the automotive underworld has taken note of the rising price of headlights. As a result, “vehicle tampering” is on the rise in the country, according to Claims Management & Adjusting (CMA), a specialist motor insurance loss adjuster. Reports of these incidents, which involve stealing parts as opposed to the whole vehicle itself, have risen from 52,268 reported incidents to 53,369 between April of 2023 and March of 2024. That’s an increase of two percent.

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Part of the reason for this is that it thieves just need to cut into the housing and rip the lighting unit out. This usually also damages other parts of the car, including the hood, bumper, and fenders, but it’s also relatively uncomplicated as far as these things go.

“Such attacks are rudimentary but effective—rip out the front lights and leave quickly,” Philip Swift, CMA’s technical director, told Fleetworld . “While unlikely to result in write-off due to the expensive profile of the vehicles concerned, these are costly repairs.”

It also appears to be plenty lucrative. The cost of replacement parts has risen dramatically in recent years, meaning some cars are worth more dismantled than intact. This has led to an increase in chop shops in the U.K. Through the first half of 2024, local authorities have uncovered 37 chop shops throughout the country, a big increase from last year. As a result industry groups are calling on the new U.K. government to re-establish the vehicle theft taskforce previously set up in 2019 to combat the issue.

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