A national TikTok trend is sparking thefts of Kias and Hyundais in Philadelphia — and residents are feeling the impact

On any given day in West Philly, you’re likely to see Kias or Hyundais with clubs on their steering wheels, secured tightly in hopes that the owners won’t find their vehicles vandalized — or worse, gone.

Kevin Rogers, a Cedar Park resident, has roots on the block and moving back a few months ago after spending some time in the suburbs felt like coming home.

Before his Kia Soul was broken into in January, he had only great things to say about the neighborhood. He enjoyed taking his small dog on walks and talking with his new neighbors.

“I love the neighborhood,” he said. “But I don’t love this.”

Philadelphia is seeing a significant spike in vehicle thefts, per data The Inquirer obtained from the Philadelphia Police Department, largely driven by thefts of Hyundais and Kias. In 2019, 389 of them were stolen. Last year, nearly 2,600 were.

Police departments nationwide have been attributing the uptick to a TikTok trend called the Kia Boyz Challenge, which explains how to steal Kia or Hyundai models with only a screwdriver and a USB cord. The term has more than 75 million TikTok views with a mix of cautionary tales, aftermaths of break-ins, and how-tos.

Now, major insurance companies are refusing to insure Kias and Hyundais as the car manufacturers struggle to protect models built without common theft deterrents, with Philadelphia car owners feeling the impact of what happens when social media exploits a manufacturing flaw.

Philly’s 10 most commonly stolen car models all saw increases in thefts from 2019 to 2022. But while most models saw thefts double, Hyundai and Kia thefts grew by upward of 400% and 700%, respectively.

» READ MORE: Kia and Hyundai thefts in Philly outpace other car manufacturers, thanks to a TikTok challenge

They peaked in December 2022, after Kia Boyz Challenge videos dominating TikTok “For You” pages over the summer and subsequent news coverage.

An email statement from TikTok said the platform “does not condone” the Kia Boyz challenge and has been working to remove content that glorifies car theft or teaches users how to steal cars.

Public safety officials, meanwhile, say they don’t know what to do.

Philadelphia police instructed Amy Nieves-Renz to — like a Kia Boy — start her car with a USB after they found it with the steering-wheel column damaged, days after it had been stolen. Her keys no longer worked.

When Nieves-Renz’s 2018 Kia Soul went missing in West Philly in November, she had only a vague idea of the TikTok trend.

“We’ve parked there a thousand times, we’ve lived in the neighborhood for years,” said Nieves-Renz, who called what happened after she couldn’t find her a car a “wild story.”

The following day, Nieves-Renz saw her stolen car drive past, bumper stickers and all.

Later that night, Nieves-Renz found her car parked at 50th Street and Warrington Avenue, not far from where her car went missing on 51st Street. The back passenger-side window was smashed and the underside of the steering wheel dangled, but “the ignition was still attached,” Nieves-Renz said.

A police officer came out to unlist the vehicle as stolen. When her keys wouldn’t fit inside the dangling ignition, the officer instructed her to try her phone charger. It worked.

It’s hard to know what came first — joyriding stolen Kias and Hyundais or posting about it to look cool on social media.

Desmond Upton Patton, a communications and social-policy professor at the University of Pennsylvania who studies the impact of social media on gun and gang violence among people of color, called the Kia Boyz Challenge a “perfect storm” for young people who want to “please and perform for other young people” in cities where vehicle theft is common, since they know it could be a shortcut to notoriety.

“Their core motivation is other peers,” said Patton, who noted that the teenagers may be more concerned about social validation than cascading consequences.

Cha-raine Gibbs didn’t know about the TikTok trend when she posted in the Facebook community group West Willy about her 2018 Hyundai Sonata in December: “Please please be on the lookout someone stole our car! Has our carseat in it! 2018 black Hyundai sonata [license] plate begins LSS.”

She wasn’t the first, or the last, to post something like that in the group.

Gibbs, who lives in the Cobbs Creek area, was informed of the trend by a member of the Facebook group and once the police arrived, they told her that these thefts had been happening at a high rate. “I was surprised, annoyed, frustrated that humanity is like this,” she said.

Gibbs called the Philadelphia Parking Authority to see if her car had been towed, then the police. A week later, officers found Gibbs’ car, catching and arresting the driver after he ran off on foot.

Another West Philly resident, who preferred to remain anonymous to avoid affecting her insurance claim, said her Hyundai Elantra was stolen at the beginning of December. She was told that her car was found on Jan. 9, but on Jan. 12 she received a notice in the mail that it had been recovered weeks before.

In the time she didn’t have her Elantra, she racked up six PPA violations.

The “PPA has no idea if your car is stolen, [so] you have to go and enter into this process of saying, ‘This was not my fault, I was not the driver,’” she said. “Given how long it took for me to be notified ... the vehicle is on the abandoned vehicle list now.”

From TikTok, police departments, and a lack of relief from the car manufacturers, drivers have little confidence the response to the Kia Boyz challenge will keep their cars safe.

A class-action lawsuit against Kia and Hyundai, filed in Orange County, Calif., in September, alleges the car manufacturers deliberately built models without standard immobilizers to drive down costs throughout the 2010s, triggering “an entire criminal ecosystem to materialize.”

Nieves-Renz joined the ongoing suit, saying she doesn’t feel Kia, Hyundai, and TikTok are taking accountability.

“We still have a car that can be stolen with a phone charger,” Nieves-Renz said.

“I hate that I’m still driving [a Kia], but we’re not at a place where we were expecting to buy a new car right now.”

Kia said in a statement that the company “remains concerned about the recent trend” and continues to “develop additional solutions.” Both Kia and Hyundai have announced new security software alongside no-cost wheel-lock distribution programs for law enforcement agencies.

The free software updates will prevent some 8 million Kias and Hyundais that lacked engine immobilizers from starting without a key in the ignition.

As for the steering-wheel lock programs, police departments must reach out to Hyundai and Kia to participate. As of Wednesday, at least one police district, the 35th, will be distributing free steering-wheel locks to Kia and Hyundai owners in their district. The distribution starts on Feb 28 at noon.

Still, Kia’s statement read, “no car can be made completely theft-proof.”

“We still have a car that can be stolen with a phone charger.”

Patton said the muddled response to the Kia Boyz Challenge has to do with who’s on the receiving end.

The outrage over the challenge is mostly contained to local news articles and neighborhood Facebook groups, paling in comparison to trends like the “Slap a Teacher” Challenge, a TikTok trend that received national media attention and direct action from schools despite being a hoax.

“[The Kia Boyz challenge] is in Philly, in Milwaukee, in cities with people of color,” he said. “People can say, ‘Oh, that’s just crime over there.’”