It’s fair to say that Canadians quite like the Honda CR-V, but not as much as they like the GMC Sierra, Chevrolet Silverado, Toyota RAV4, Ram pickup or Ford F-Series pickups, all of which rank ahead of the Honda in the new vehicle sales charts for the first half of 2022.
Canadian car thieves, though, those guys absolutely adore the CR-V, and unlike some potential buyers, weren’t patient enough to wait for the all-new model to arrive this winter before getting their hands on one.
The 2016-21 CR-V easily topped a list of Canada’s most stolen vehicles in 2021, leaving the 2016-21 Lexus RX and 2015-20 Ford F-150 trailing in second and third spots. A total of 4,117 CR-Vs were requisitioned from their rightful owners, compared with only 2,202 RXs and 1,182 Ford trucks, according to data from the Insurance Bureau of Canada collated by Équité Association.
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But dig deeper into the figures and it’s the Lexus’s performance that really shocks. There were 236,550 CR-Vs insured when the study was published, which means the model has a 1.7 percent that rate based on the 4,117 cars that went missing. But the Insurance Bureau of Canada only had 34,560 2016-21 model year RXs logged on its database, giving a shocking 6.4 percent theft rate. That’s one in every 16 cars!
Lexus might take some solace in the fact that the RX is the firm’s only model on the list, whereas Honda’s name appears three times. The thieves much preferred the CR-V to both its Civic brother, only 768 of which were spirited away by light-fingered Honda fans, earning it fourth spot, and the Honda Accord (eighth place and 372 stolen).
Seems the low-lives didn’t care so much for the Honda’s arch rival, the Toyota RAV4, either. The Toyota ranked third in this year’s list of best-selling vehicles in Canada, but limped home in tenth place in the list of stolen vehicles. Not that Toyota will be worried – it’ll be too busy panicking over the RX’s numbers and thinking about handing out free parking boots to owners.
