UK Keyless Car Theft by City — How to Read the Data in 2026

National headlines about car theft hide a local pattern. A driver in Ealing does not face the same mix of relay theft, opportunistic taking and recovery rates as someone in a rural force.

This article does not invent per-city FOI tables. Those numbers must come from the force that holds them. What we can publish today is the method, the public sources, and the practical countermeasures we fit on driveways in London and the South East.

Public sources (use these first)

1. Police.uk — recorded vehicle offences by neighbourhood.
2. Home Office crime outcomes — national trend, not keyless-specific.
3. Your police force website — vehicle-crime or road-crime problem profiles.
4. FOI — ask for “thefts of motor vehicles where the modus operandi was recorded as keyless, relay, or signal amplification” for the last 24 months, broken down by local authority or LSOA if held.

When a force replies, we will update this page with a dated table and a link to the disclosure. Until then, treat any viral “most stolen postcodes” graphic as marketing unless it cites a dataset.

What the method tells drivers

Relay equipment is cheap and works in dense housing: terraces, flats, and cars parked on the street within range of a hallway fob. That is why West London, Slough, Reading and the M25 fringe show up in our job book for CarGuard CAN more often than isolated villages.

If you already have a working key, order a spare and store it away from the door. If every key is gone, that is an All Keys Lost job — different process, individual quote.

What TuneCar actually fits

• TASSA-approved CAN immobiliser, mobile install — car security hub
• Spare keys and programming — key replacement guide prices
• Local pages: Slough, Reading, Uxbridge

FOI template (send to your force)

Please provide, for the last 24 months:
1. Count of theft of motor vehicle offences.
2. Count (if recorded) where MO was keyless, relay, or electronic signal amplification.
3. Breakdown by local authority or neighbourhood if held.
4. Make/model of the most frequently stolen vehicles if held without identifying individuals.

Send the disclosure to info@tunecar.co.uk if you want it reflected on this page with attribution.