--- title: "Why Your AirTag Probably Won't Get Your Stolen Car Back" description: "Plenty of Angelenos have tucked a GPS tracker or an Apple AirTag into their car, sure that a cheap gadget is their best defense against theft. Security experts and police say the technology is far less reliable than owners expect — and that chasing a signal yourself can be dangerous." category: "Business" category_url: https://herald.la/category/business author: "Tyler Grant" published: 2026-07-01T23:55:00.000Z updated: 2026-07-01T23:55:00.000Z canonical: https://herald.la/article/why-your-airtag-probably-won-t-get-your-stolen-car-back tags: ["auto theft", "GPS tracker", "AirTag", "Los Angeles", "vehicle security", "consumer"] --- # Why Your AirTag Probably Won't Get Your Stolen Car Back Plenty of Angelenos have tucked a GPS tracker or an Apple AirTag into their car, sure that a cheap gadget is their best defense against theft. Security experts and police say the technology is far less reliable than owners expect — and that chasing a signal yourself can be dangerous. The idea is simple: hide a tracker, and if your car is stolen, watch it move on your phone and send police straight to it. The reality, experts say, rarely works out that way. ## Why LA drivers care Few places have more reason to worry. The Los Angeles metro area recorded 53,911 vehicle thefts in 2025 — the most of any U.S. metro — and California led all states with 136,988, [according to the Insurance Information Institute](https://www.iii.org/fact-statistic/facts-statistics-auto-theft). Against that backdrop, a $30 tracker feels like cheap insurance. But security specialists told the [BBC](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp8r1798kp7o) that recovery is far from guaranteed. ## How thieves beat trackers Two weaknesses come up repeatedly. The first is jamming: cheap GPS jammers, illegal to operate in the U.S. but sold overseas online, flood the frequencies a cellular tracker relies on, making it go dark the moment a thief plugs one in. The second affects Bluetooth tags like AirTags. Apple built in anti-stalking alerts that warn people when an unknown tag seems to be traveling with them — a genuine safety feature that also tips off a savvy thief, who can get the same notification and remove the device before the car reaches a chop shop. Even a working tracker is racing the clock: professional theft rings can strip a car for parts or load it for export within hours, leaving police a location but no vehicle. ## What police actually advise Officers are candid that even a precise location ping does not guarantee a real-time response; patrol units juggle higher-priority calls, and a signal drifting across jurisdictions is hard to chase. Their advice leans toward prevention: layered, visible deterrence. Steering-wheel locks are back in favor because a thief hunting an easy target tends to move on; aftermarket immobilizers that interrupt the starter add another hurdle. Keeping a vehicle's software updated matters too — the viral Hyundai and Kia thefts of recent years exploited a gap the makers later patched. ## If your car is taken On one point police and experts are emphatic: **do not confront or follow a thief yourself.** Owners who tracked their cars and went to retrieve them have been assaulted or worse; a vehicle is replaceable. Instead: call 911 and file a report with the VIN and any tracker data; share that data with investigators rather than posting it publicly; and notify your insurer, which will need the report number for a theft claim. None of this makes trackers worthless — a well-hidden, tamper-resistant unit can help police build a case alongside camera footage. But experts caution against treating any single gadget as a full solution. In a city where theft remains stubbornly high, the drivers most likely to keep their cars are the ones who make stealing them more trouble than it's worth. ## Sources - [Don't expect trackers to save your stolen car, experts say](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp8r1798kp7o) - [Facts + statistics: Auto theft](https://www.iii.org/fact-statistic/facts-statistics-auto-theft)