When two St. Paul police officers knocked on a door recently, they quickly assured the man who came outside that he was not in trouble.

They wanted to talk with him about his car. There wasn’t any problem with it, they said, but they wanted to make sure they wouldn’t be back to take a theft report.

“We’re talking to owners of older Toyotas and Hondas — they’re the ones that get stolen the most out of the city,” Officer Flavio Becerra told a 26-year-old man who owns a 1995 Toyota Camry.

On a recent weekday afternoon, Becerra and Officer Nathan Poke made their way to a series of Payne-Phalen neighborhood residences, where older-model vehicles are registered.

They gave people quick tips about keeping their cars from being stolen and left flyers titled, “Your vehicle is one of the top stolen vehicles in St. Paul,” for those who were not home.

Auto thefts tend to spike when temperatures drop. Officers on St. Paul’s East Side started the initiative with the goal of cutting back on theft through education. So far, they’re trying to reach the owners of more than 2,000 older-model cars registered in their part of the city. Police in other parts of St. Paul are planning on doing the same.

Police also are using bait cars to attempt to nab thieves and issuing the perennial warnings about not leaving cars running and unattended.

Thirty-seven of the 79 cars stolen between Nov. 20 and Dec. 3 in St. Paul had keys in them — with 46 percent of them in the Eastern District — and many of them were running, said Senior Cmdr. Axel Henry, who heads the police department’s Eastern District.

“We get it — it’s cold, we live in Minnesota, it’s no fun getting into a car with frosty windshields,” Henry said. “But we’re begging folks, ‘Please, please, please don’t leave your cars running.’ ”

Though it’s against St. Paul ordinance to leave a car unattended and running — unless it’s a remote-start system — and officers can issue tickets, they tend to take the approach of warning people. That’s because they don’t want to re-victimize someone who just had their car stolen, Henry said.

FOCUS ON OLDER-MODEL CARS

The East Side historically has a higher percentage of auto thefts, Henry said.

While having a car stolen makes life difficult for anyone, it can be even more so for the owners of older-model cars. They may be renters, making their car the most expensive piece of property they own, Henry said. And they’re less likely to have full-coverage car insurance, he added.

When Officer Poke takes auto theft reports, he’s noticed the people who tend to be more upset are owners of older cars.

“Whatever predicament you’re in, that’s your only vehicle,” Poke said. “That’s what they’re putting their time and money into. That’s the only way you’re getting to and from work, or picking the kids up from school.”

Hondas and Toyotas with models roughly from 1998 to 2002 “are taken at unprecedented rates statistically,” Henry said. He said many of those cars are still on the road because they are reliable; thieves target them because they’ve found ways to steal them. Newer cars tend to have technology that makes stealing them more difficult.

Ten of the 37 vehicles reported stolen on the East Side from Nov. 20 to Dec. 3 were Hondas, with half of those being Accords, though Henry said the most-stolen models fluctuate from week-to-week.

Since last month, officers have left informational flyers for about 600 owners of older-model cars and talked to those who were home.

The flyers have information in English, Hmong, Spanish and Somali. Officers will keep at it, when they’re periodically given time to do so and as time allows between calls they respond to, Henry said.

POLICE ALSO USING BAIT CARS, WATCHING FOR IDLING CARS

Overall in St. Paul, auto theft reports were up more than 12 percent through mid-December, compared with the same period as last year.

People steal vehicles for various reasons — it could be to strip the car of parts and resell them, a crime of opportunity if someone finds a running car, or just for the thrill of it, Henry said.

In addition to alerting owners of older vehicles that their cars are more at risk, St. Paul police say they’re making other efforts, including:

Operation Idle started last year in the Eastern District and is now citywide. Officers on patrol, beginning around 5 a.m., keep an eye out for vehicles that people have left unattended and warming up while they’re getting ready for work. They warn the owners. Last year, in the first 10 days of Operation Idle, officers found people poised to steal idling cars three different times on the East Side and made arrests, Henry said.

Police are using running and unattended bait cars to try to catch car thieves. The first bait-car detail was Thursday and although police didn’t catch anyone during the 3-hour operation, they said they plan to continue to try throughout the winter.

The police department is spreading the word about cars that have a push-button start. Many people are under the impression they can leave such cars running and, if the key fob is not in the vehicle, it cannot be stolen. But most of those cars can still be driven away, Henry said. He encourages people to do a test-run on their own vehicle to see what happens.

While police warn people not to leave valuables in their car because that makes them a more attractive target, they especially want to spread the word about not storing guns in cars, so the weapons don’t end up in the wrong hands.

Henry said officers see instances of people reporting their vehicle stolen and gone with the car is a 9mm handgun or deer-hunting rifle, for example, that was in the trunk.

AFTER WARNING CAR OWNER, OFFICERS FIND A STOLEN CAR

On the afternoon that officers Poke and Becerra were going door-to-door, they spoke with Leviticus Carter, the owner of the older Toyota Camry.

Becerra gave him a few tips:

Keep your car locked at all times.

Don’t leave it running with the keys in it.

Think about getting a steering-wheel lock, such as The Club.

Carter said he’s heard since high school about older-model cars being stolen, though he doesn’t know everyone is aware of the problem.

As the officers drove away, they happened to check the license plate of a vehicle parked down the street, in the area of Bradley Street and Magnolia Avenue, and it came back as stolen.

The 1998 Hondra CRV is in the range of cars that police are warning people about as frequently stolen models.

The vehicle was stolen six days earlier from a driveway just over a mile away. The driver left it locked and there were no keys inside when it was taken. When Poke looked inside after they found it, he saw a thief or thieves had ripped out the radio console and rifled through the vehicle.

“I think the most frustrating part is even if you’re not leaving the car running or unlocked, it’s still getting stolen,” Poke said.