Ram infotainment thefts spike in Royal Oak: “Hard to believe"

ROYAL OAK, Mich. (FOX 2) - Just a few days after Macomb County authorities arrested two suspects in a string of thefts of infotainment systems of Ram pickup trucks, Royal Oak Police are reporting a similar increase.

Police confirm they're investigating several reports of infotainment systems stolen from at least five different Ram trucks. Last Friday, Macomb County prosecutors arrested two suspects after investigating 87 reports of the same rime in six months.

Brian Unatin drives a Ram truck and was one of the five victims in Royal Oak.

"It’s hard to believe that somebody would take that much time because you have to break the entire dash out," he said. "Hard to believe that that could go unseen. Seems like it would take some time to do that."

Ledell Griffin at Galeana's Van Dyke Dodge Ram in Warren says they have one customer getting their truck repaired after becoming a victim.

A stolen infotainment system can cost you about $4,000 as they do just about everything for your car.

"So not only does it just do the radio and do your Bluetooth, but it also controls your heating, it controls your cooling, and it controls sometimes trailer information and heated seats, heated steering wheel and stuff like that," Griffin said.

Not only that, it will take at least a month to get a replacement in. Griffin says the most simple thing to do is to lock your vehicle.

"Just pay attention to what you are doing. These vehicles do come with alarms on them. It doesn’t work if you hit the glass but that’s why I say lock your doors. You lock your doors, it’s going to make some noise. In thieves they go for the path of least resistance. First they’re going to go for something that’s not going to make noise. Second they’re going to go for something that’s easy to do," Griffin said.

Unatin has an even simpler message.

"Stay away from my car! Simply put!"