Uptown Sees Surge in Luxury-Car Headlight Heists
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Soaring gas prices aren’t the only thing driving luxury car owners nuts. Thieves in Upper Manhattan have taken a shine to the super-bright and super-expensive xenon headlights in certain models of Lexus and BMW, among other cars.
Between January 6 and September 1, 35 cases of headlight theft from Lexus 300/330 sports utility vehicles were reported in Manhattan above 59th Street, police data show. Between April 30 and September 1, there were eight thefts reported of the headlights on the mid-size BMW 5 Series cars on the Upper East and West sides, the data show.
Headlight theft is not a new phenomenon in New York City, the operations coordinator in the New York Police Department’s auto crime division, Sgt. Michael Egan, said. Indeed, the problem has existed for the past few years. “We’ve seen more of an issue of it in Queens and the Bronx,” Mr. Egan said.
There is no single culprit in the headlight crimes, Mr. Egan said. The head lamps in question, High Intensity Discharge, are popular in the black market and among organized criminals. Most of the thefts, however, are for the thief to retrofit his own car, he said. “Essentially it looks cool,” Mr. Egan said.
The headlamps are expensive, selling in the retail market for upward of $1,000 and in the aftermarket for a price determined by demand. The lamps are found as a standard feature or an option on luxury vehicles, including Hondas, Jaguars, Lincolns, Nissans, Audis, and Volkswagens. The lights have a blue hue and provide three times more light than halogens. They also mimic sunlight better than any other light, have a longer lifespan, and use less energy. The lights on certain models can be popped out within seconds and typically lack an identification number.
A spokesman for the Lexus Division of Toyota Motor Sales USA, Greg Thome, said the company was notified of the trend late last year and has been working with New York police to thwart it. Headlights on the Lexus RX300/330 SUVs have been targeted in the New York City area as well as in parts of Northern New Jersey and in Fairfield, Conn., Mr. Thome said.
BMW’s product communications specialist, Bill Scully, said he had never heard of thieves’ singling out BMWs for headlights. “The number eight doesn’t seem like an extraordinary number to me,” Mr. Scully said. “That number very well may explain why I haven’t heard about it internally,” he added.
In 2005, the BMW Manhattan service department serviced only two vehicles from which one or both headlights had been stolen, he said.
Insurance companies are aware of the crime – in at least one case, painfully aware of it. “One of our own company vehicles in our sister company actually had the headlights stolen from the parking lot,” the director of brand and public relations for Ensurance.com, Kristin Brewe, said. It is a nationwide automobile insurance company.
Workers at some Manhattan body shops said they have seen the trend, and the issue has made its way into courtrooms.
The New Jersey attorney general’s office sued Nissan last year, alleging the company knew it had a problem with theft or attempted thefts of headlamps but failed to inform customers about it.
“I’m not sure why they went after Nissan cars, particularly Maxima, but they did,” the automaker’s director of corporate communications, Fred Standish, said.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office is in the process of prosecuting at least one man for the crime. Turvide Acosta was arrested March 22 for stealing one headlight, valued at more than $1,000, Robert Morgenthau’s office said. Mr. Acosta’s next court date is September 21.