Car trackers for a Toyota: built-in tracking and theft risk, model by model

Does a Toyota have built-in tracking?

Almost every new Toyota carries a telematics unit. The Land Cruiser 300 brochure says so in as many words: “All new Toyota vehicles now come fitted standard with a telematics device”, which works once the dealer activates it and registers it to the MyToyota app.²¹ Toyota calls the service Toyota Connect, and its 2026 spec sheets mark it on nearly every trim, from the little Vitz to the Land Cruiser.^13,16

Most of what it does is about convenience. The brochures list in-car Wi-Fi with 25GB of free data once-off, a logbook, driver notifications, a battery health check, service booking, roadside assistance and a “GPS locator”.²² The locator isn’t live. Toyota’s FAQ says the car’s position is updated when the ignition goes on and when it goes off, and that Car Finder “shows last parked location; not real‑time tracking”.²

In the app you can draw a zone and be told when the car leaves or enters it, when it goes over a speed you set, when the ignition is switched on, or when it is driven harshly.² An alert like that tells you something is wrong. Nobody is sent to bring the car back.

Does the new Hilux have built-in tracking?

Yes. The ninth-generation Hilux, on sale from 2026, is for now the only Toyota with Toyota Remote, a second app whose remote functions include stolen-vehicle tracking.² The spec sheets list it as standard on the 2.8 GD-6 Raider and SRX double cabs, the Raider X Xtra Cab and the SRX single cab. The Legend is in the brochure but not on the current spec sheet, so we can’t confirm it has Toyota Remote.⁴

The tracking itself is done by people, not by the app. Toyota describes it as “a customer-care assisted service”: once you report the Hilux stolen and your identity is checked, its location goes minute by minute to Toyota’s tracking partner, which can also immobilise it. You can’t immobilise it from your phone, and the FAQ warns that “a real-time tracking map view may not be available in-app”.²

Day to day, the app locks and unlocks the doors, closes the windows, runs the air-conditioning and finds the car. Its alarm warns you if a door is unlocked without the smart key, the bonnet is opened while the car is locked, glass breaks, the car is tilted, or the battery is disconnected.^2,22 On selected models the alarm also uses ultra-wideband technology “to help prevent remote signal jamming”.²²

Toyota Remote is free for three years from the day the warranty starts, and it doesn’t renew by itself. After that it is paid “at the current rates”, shown in the app; we found no published price. The FAQ doesn’t say whether the stolen-vehicle service runs around the clock or sends a recovery team.²

The 2.4 Hilux still on sale, in Raider, SR and S trim, has Toyota Connect but not Toyota Remote, and it starts with a key.⁴

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Will an insurer accept Toyota Connect or Toyota Remote?

We found no South African insurer that says it does, and Toyota South Africa doesn’t claim it either. Its spokesperson told TopAuto that “the MyToyota app is not a substitute for vehicle tracking devices”, and that fitting one “remains at the discretion of the customer and their insurer”.³

What insurers do publish is what a tracker has to do. Pineapple’s policy wording describes a unit that enables “the tracking company to track, locate and recover/attempt to recover the Vehicle”, and it must be “installed, maintained and operational” for a theft claim to be paid.²³ Naked is shorter: “If it’s missing recovery, it won’t meet Naked’s requirements.”²⁴ Toyota lists no recovery service with Toyota Connect, so on its own it doesn’t pass that test.

Some insurers ask more of Toyota owners. Hollard’s hit list, published by consumer journalist Wendy Knowler in 2025, covered the Hilux and Fortuner from 2016, the Prado from 2018, the Land Cruiser from 2017 and every Lexus from 2018, and warned that owners might need two tracking devices. Knowler added that the list may have changed since.⁸ In one case TopAuto reported, a 2013 Fortuner’s only tracker was “removed on the spot” when it was stolen, and the claim was refused because the insurer had asked for a second unit.²⁵

Discovery Insure tells Corolla Cross 1.8 XR owners to have two of its Crowd Search Sensors installed and active, or theft and hijacking cover may be excluded, although it later said it had not singled the model out.²⁶

Toyota Corolla

Toyota South Africa now lists one Corolla of each shape: the 1.8 hybrid “60th” sedan and hatch. Both have Toyota Connect, smart entry and push-button start. The sedan’s security is listed as a horn alarm with immobiliser, the hatch’s as a siren immobiliser.⁹

The Corolla is eighth on King Price’s 2026 list of the most hijacked cars and fourth on Gauteng Tourism’s, and Cars.co.za counts it among Toyota’s known targets. None of the three gives a number, and we found no report of how Corollas are being taken.^5,20,27

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Toyota Urban Cruiser

All three Urban Cruiser trims, the 1.5 Xs manual and the XR manual and automatic, have Toyota Connect, smart entry, push-button start and an immobiliser with alarm.¹⁵ That makes it a keyless car, the kind relay attacks are used against; TopAuto reported those attacks rising in 2025.²⁸

No 2025 or 2026 source we found names the Urban Cruiser as a hijacking or theft target.

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Toyota Vitz, Toyota’s small hatch in place of the Yaris

Toyota South Africa no longer lists an ordinary Yaris hatch, only the GR Yaris; its small hatch is the Vitz.²⁹ All three Vitz trims have Toyota Connect, and all three start with a key. The entry 1.0 manual lists an immobiliser and no alarm. The XR manual and automated manual add a remote and an immobiliser with alarm.¹⁶

We found no source that names the Vitz as a target.

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Toyota Starlet

Every Starlet has Toyota Connect and an immobiliser with alarm. Only the XR, manual or automatic, has smart entry and push-button start; the Xs and Xi start with a key and lock with a standard remote.¹⁷

The Starlet Cross is split the same way, keyless on the XR and a key on the XS. No 2025 or 2026 source we found names either car as a target.¹⁷

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Toyota Quantum and HiAce

Fidelity ADT named the Toyota Quantum among the vehicles most often targeted in recent incidents, in a list published in February 2026, and gave demand for resale and for parts as the reason. It published no figures.¹¹

Toyota Connect is patchy across the minibuses. It is enabled on the Quantum VX buses and on the panel van and crew cab, but the spec sheets for the Quantum GL bus, the HiAce 2.5D GL and the HiAce Ses’fikile have no Toyota Connect line at all. The Quantum VX is keyless, with a self-powered siren. The panel van and both HiAces start with a key, and the Ses’fikile lists an immobiliser but no alarm.¹⁸

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Land Cruiser 79, 300 and Prado

All three Land Cruiser ranges have Toyota Connect, and none has Toyota Remote.^12,13,14 They have a page of their own, the Land Cruiser tracker page, with the theft methods, the insurer lists and the factory security of each one.

How Toyotas are being stolen

Toyota South Africa named three methods in 2022, when it offered free security updates for the Hilux Legend from 2019, every Fortuner from 2016 and the Prado VX and VXL from 2017: a “CAN attack”, “fob relaying”, and “a combination of forced entry and key cloning”.³⁰

The CAN attack has moved on since. In August 2026 TopAuto, citing LandCruiserSA, called CAN-bus injection “the newest and most sophisticated method”. Thieves reach the car’s data network through a connector behind a headlight, a wheel arch or a wing mirror, then unlock it, get past the alarm and immobiliser and push-start it, in under 90 seconds by some estimates. The article named the Hilux, Fortuner, Land Cruiser and Prado.³¹

Keyless Toyotas face two simpler tricks: replay attacks, where the fob’s code is captured at a mall, and relay attacks at home, both reported to be rising in 2025.²⁸ Toyota’s newer defence is ultra-wideband. The Prado’s system “constantly measures the distance” between key and car, and won’t start the engine unless the key is physically inside.³²

What to fit to a Toyota

A tracker with a recovery service, on top of whatever Toyota fitted, and a second one if your schedule asks for it. Read the schedule before you buy: insurers set the requirement car by car, and King Price, for one, says the device you need is “confirmed with you at the inception of your cover” and “noted on your policy schedule”.³³

On a keyless Toyota, look after the key as well. Toyota’s advice to owners of keyless models outside its 2022 update was to buy a Faraday pouch from a dealer, or to have the alarm recalibrated against fob relaying.³⁴

Our deals start from R99pm for a wireless recovery unit, or R149pm for a full insurance-approved tracker. Free installation, 36-month contract.

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