Hey everyone, you guys may or may not have noticed I posted in the new member section last week saying I was picking up my 2019 Magnetic SCrew on Wednesday. Well Wednesday morning my wife and I flew to Houston to pick it up. It was the only one I could find with the combination of options I wanted where the dealer wasn't charging any markup over MSRP. We got to Houston and picked up the truck, everything went great. We started heading west on I-10 on our way home to Utah and we stop in San Antonio, TX. We got a fairly decent 3-star hotel in a nice enough looking area. Nothing suspect at all really. I parked right in front of the door of the hotel, directly under a security camera on purpose. I double-checked that the truck was locked, even complained about the horn chirp when locking it since it was late and the horn is really loud. We go in at 11pm, go to sleep. Wake up the next morning to continue our drive, truck is gone. Had it less than 24 hours. Call the cops, the cops take 3 hours to show up. Called 3 times and was told no officers were available each time. Thankfully I wasn't getting robbed or killed.
In the mean time the hotel's general manager comes in to review the footage. Tells me the thieves were pros and had stolen the truck in less than a minute. Opened the door with a screwdriver faster than I can open it with the actual metal key. He said they have many, many newer F-series trucks stolen. I never paid attention because that kind of stuff just doesn't really happen where I live, not to point of everyone knowing about it anyway.
I start looking around and notice I only had 1 key fob. I thought for sure they had given the second key to my wife since she is co-owner. I called the dealership and they told me they had put the other fob in the owner's manual thing. So made it pretty easy for the thieves to just start it up and drive away. I used to leave a fob in my 2017 Raptor all the time, and use the door code to get back in. I'd do that when going swimming or going for a long ride in UTV, whatever. Didn't think much of it, it was late and we had been up since 3am to catch the flight. I've been all over in my 2017 Raptor and parked it in some less than desirable places without issue. It only took 1 night in San Antonio.
I have insurance and I purchased GAP and a theft policy at a negotiated rate for this truck so if everything goes right I will be mostly covered. Will likely be out my down payment and the stuff that was in my truck that was stolen, which thankfully wasn't much. I don't think they will be able to recover the truck based on what I've read about thefts in that area. After all the police and insurance stuff was done, I started looking for food and noticed there was a Ford dealership right across the street. I walked over to it and start asking the sales guys if they have had issues with thefts or whatever. The first 2 guys I meet had both had their f150 stolen within the last year.
Out of curiosity I asked if they had any Raptors and they ended up having one with everything I wanted except spray-in bedliner. It also had the carbon fiber package which I didn't want, but decided I could live with. I ended up buying it from them. So I got a Raptor either way. We drove the 1500 miles home in a straight shot and didn't even stop to sleep. If they end up recovering the first truck I guess I will have 2 Raptors and have to sell one of them.
TL;DR: If you're near the southern border or any major cities I'd seriously consider having your lock cylinder removed from driver door or locking rod removed to disable the keyed entry. It is absolutely a joke how easy it is to break into these trucks.
