Car thieves stole a £183,000 Range Rover that the dealership it was bought from described as ‘unstealable’, and the victim is now understandably fuming.
John, 45, collected the Range Rover 2024 SV Edition One from the dealership in Coventry on December 14 last year and drove it back to his home in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire.
The limited edition Range Rover (only 550 released in the UK) boasts £10,000 graphite wheels and seats that can massage you or pulse in time with music, among other high-tech features.
Unfortunately for John, the car was stolen out of his driveway by a group of thieves less than 60 hours after he brought it home.
CCTV footage shows a car drop off three men at the top of the street shortly before 1am. Two of them then walk towards the Range Rover, while the other acts as a lookout on the other side of the road.
John is baffled as to how the men actually got into his car (apparently they didn’t get near enough to his house to have used a key scanner), but once they did, it took them about 15 minutes to get the car started and drive off.
John woke up at 3am to several missed calls from the car’s tracking company, and looked out of the window to see his Range Rover had vanished.
He called the tracking company but by then it was too late; the tracker had been turned off.
John told MailOnline that he’s particularly annoyed because the dealership assured him that the car was ‘unstealable’ because of a new Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) security upgrade.
He had even asked about having a Ghost Immobiliser fitted, which requires the driver to enter a password before the car becomes driveable, but was told it wasn’t needed because the upgrade meant ’no one’s taking this car’.
John says: ‘I felt safe with this knowledge, I had just paid £183,000 for a car made by JLR and the staff were confident that they had now made these cars safe and unstealable.’
John reckons the fact the ‘getaway driver’ drove away after dropping off his buddies suggests the thieves were confident they could steal the Range Rover, but still can’t wrap his head around how they managed to get into the car in the first place without smashing a window.
John says: ‘They did not come near to the house with a scanning device to get a key signal, whatever they did was more sophisticated than this, they didn’t need one.’
John has now complained to JLR, saying that the theft demonstrated a ‘catastrophic failure of the security system advertised as state-of-the-art’. Which you’d think is a fair complaint, given he forked out £183,000 for the vehicle.
The Jaguar Land Rover Client Relationship Centre aren’t having it however, and have stated that they will not consider reviewing any claims of responsibility, because car theft is a risk that all owners face. Bit cheeky?
They also suggested that John contact The Motor Ombudsman if he’s unhappy with the firm’s response, which I’m sure he will do.
Also, I’m sure that John has already thought about this as a possibility, but could it be that someone at the dealership was in on the whole thing? Maybe someone over there is cloning the key and the thieves taking 15 minutes to get the car started was all theatre to make it seem like they did it another way. Just a thought…
For the Coventry man who ‘channeled his inner Liam Neeson’ to track down the thief who stole his wife’s car, click HERE. Get him on the case!
