Just a heads-up, and it might be old news but this is the first I've heard of it.

I was watching the local news (Saskatchewan, Canada) and there has been a rash of thefts recently, all 2006 F-350s. Apparently the police are reporting a vulnerability of the ignition system that makes them super easy to steal. The report suggested that the trucks may have been unlocked as some (all?) the thefts were in very small rural towns where people just don't lock stuff up (I was cured of that naivety decades ago in my own small town, pop ~1500).

Anybody else aware of this problem before? And is it just 2006 F-350s ? That would seem odd.

 

From driving E350's... I would say that would be plausible. I've driven 2005 and 2006 E350's and most of them don't have PATS which would make it quite simple to steal. In fact I've got two E350's where I work that are 2005 and they both don't have transponder equipped keys.

Now I know there are tricks behind getting past passive anti-theft systems on new vehicles if you want to use regular keys (aka, Wally World keys). One trick is get a known working key, cut the blade leaving the bow of the key, and then open the steering wheel cover and double-sided tape the bow of the key inside. Then you can use regular non-transponder keys. They do this with a lot of commercial/municipal owned fleet vehicles.

 

The superduties didn't get pats until '08 AFIK, and that along with plastic door handles make 'em easy to steal with a leatherman.

Adrianspeeder

 

You can start these trucks with a screw driver, what do you expect?