14 Percent of Keyless Car Owners Faced a Relay Theft Attempt, DVLA Data Shows

• A MoneySuperMarket survey of 500 keyless car owners found 14 percent, or one in seven, had suffered a relay theft or an attempted break-in using the technique.
• DVLA data obtained under Freedom of Information rules shows the BMW 3 Series was targeted 4,223 times between 2023 and 2025, more than any other keyless model on UK roads.
• Only 22 percent of keyless car owners use a Faraday pouch to block their key’s signal, the single cheapest defence against the attack that is driving the thefts.

One in Seven Keyless Owners Has Already Been Targeted

Every driver who owns a car with a keyless entry fob is carrying a small, continuous radio signal around their home, and criminals have built an entire trade around capturing it. A MoneySuperMarket survey of 500 keyless car owners found that 14 percent, one in seven, had already experienced a relay theft or an attempted break-in using the technique. The figure rises sharply for owners of certain brands: 28 percent of BMW drivers in the survey reported a relay attack or attempted attack on their car, nearly double the average across all keyless models. The method does not require a locksmith, a crowbar, or any contact with the vehicle’s actual key. It requires two cheap radio devices, both available online for under fifty pounds combined, and about sixty seconds standing near a front door.

How Relay Theft Actually Works

A keyless fob constantly emits a low-power signal so the car can detect it is nearby and unlock automatically. Relay theft exploits that signal rather than breaking it. One device, held near the house, picks up the fob’s signal through the wall, even from inside a hallway or kitchen where the key sits in a bowl or on a hook. A second device, held next to the car, relays that captured signal straight to the vehicle’s receiver, tricking the car into believing the real key is present. The car unlocks, the ignition starts, and the thief drives away without ever touching the actual fob. The entire process from first signal capture to driving off typically takes under a minute, which is why relay attacks are concentrated on driveways and street parking directly outside a house rather than in car parks or garages further from the key’s resting place.

The Models DVLA Data Shows Are Being Targeted Hardest

DVLA records obtained through Freedom of Information requests and analysed by MoneySuperMarket cover theft reports for keyless models between 2023 and 2025. The BMW 3 Series topped the list with 4,223 recorded thefts over the period, ahead of the Land Rover Discovery at 2,557, the Mercedes E-Class at 2,345, and the Lexus RX 450h at 2,267. All four sit in a price bracket, roughly £35,000 to £70,000 when new, that makes them attractive both to buyers and to the organised gangs who strip them for parts or ship them abroad within days of theft. A car’s presence on this list is not a judgement on its build quality. It reflects how often a model’s particular keyless system has been reverse-engineered by criminal networks and how easily the resulting equipment circulates: relay kits built for one popular platform tend to work across every car that shares the same locking hardware.

The FOI figures only count thefts formally recorded and matched back to a vehicle make and model, so the true scale of relay crime is almost certainly higher once attempted break-ins that failed to result in a drivable theft, and thefts where the make was not clearly logged, are added in. Manufacturers have responded unevenly. Some premium brands now fit ultra-wideband key technology that measures the precise distance and angle between fob and car rather than simply detecting a signal, closing off the relay method entirely on newer models. Older cars already on the road, including every example built before that technology became standard, remain exposed regardless of how recently they were bought, which is why the DVLA figures still show high theft counts for models that have been on sale for years rather than only the newest releases.

Why So Few Owners Protect Themselves

The survey found just 22 percent of keyless car owners use a Faraday pouch or signal-blocking box to store their key at home, even though the device costs as little as six pounds and needs no fitting or technical knowledge. A simple metal tin will do the same job if a dedicated pouch is not available. Other precautions were more common: 45 percent of owners park on a driveway rather than the street, 35 percent choose a well-lit spot, 33 percent rely on CCTV, and 25 percent fit a GPS tracker or a secondary immobiliser. All of those measures help after a theft has started or make a property a less attractive target in general, but none of them stop a relay attack the way blocking the fob’s signal does. The gap between how many owners know the risk exists and how many have spent six pounds to remove it is the real story behind thousands of thefts that insurers and police both describe as preventable.

The Cost Lands on Everyone, Not Just the Victim

A successful relay theft rarely stays a single driver’s problem for long. Insurers price keyless vehicle theft risk across their entire book, not model by model for each customer, which means a rising theft rate on a handful of popular keyless models pushes premiums up for every owner of that model, including the large majority who have never been targeted and who already use a pouch every night. Vehicles stolen through relay attacks are frequently exported within days, stripped for parts in unlicensed garages, or re-registered with cloned identities, all of which make recovery far less likely than a theft carried out through a smashed window or a stolen physical key. Police forces have treated relay crime as organised rather than opportunistic for several years now. The equipment required, software-defined radios and signal amplifiers, is specialist enough that casual criminals rarely attempt it without buying kit and instructions from an established supplier.

What to Do if You Own a Keyless Car

The fix costs less than a tank of fuel and takes thirty seconds. Store the fob in a Faraday pouch, a signal-blocking box, or even a sealed metal tin overnight, and test that it actually works by walking up to the car with the pouch sealed to confirm it no longer unlocks automatically. Ask a dealer whether the key can be put into a sleep or deep-discharge mode through the car’s settings menu, a feature some manufacturers have added specifically in response to relay theft. A mechanical steering lock adds a visible deterrent too: relay thieves who are interrupted or spot one tend to move to an easier target rather than spend time defeating it. Anyone who owns one of the models most frequently named in theft data, including the 3 Series, the Discovery, the E-Class, or the RX, should treat the six-pound pouch as closer to mandatory than optional. Insurers increasingly ask at renewal whether a keyless car is stored with any signal-blocking precaution, and a straight answer of yes can make a measurable difference to the premium quoted, on top of the much larger benefit of simply keeping the car on the drive in the morning. None of these steps requires a trip to a dealership or a specialist fitter, and most owners could put every one of them in place before the end of today, which makes the gap between the risk and the response harder to explain than the risk itself.

Motoring Chronicle has previously covered how nearly 70 percent of stolen cars are never returned to their owners, and how Crown Courts jailed two gangs for stealing 65 cars worth £600,000 in relay attacks.

Sources:

• Insurance Edge: Revealed: Keyless Entry Theft Attempts Remain a Threat