hugo

I called them today to get mine checked, inspired by you lot. They were able to tell me the route I took to work but as soon as I entered the multi storey car park, they couldn't find me any more. Is this not worrying for a system of this price? What if the car was wheeled into the back of a container and driven off?

jon17

Phoned for a system check today, tested OK !!!

keefy

"Is this what I am paying a grand for ??"
Sonic Why are you paying a grand, the RRP is £449 supplied and fitted and the annual sub is £120, now it might of been a long time since i was at school but that doesn't add up to any where near £1000.00.

Operations, RAC Trackstar

Regarding many of the above entries, there are a number of points to be addressed here (these are not necessarily verbatim quotes):



“They checked my Trackstar and it didn’t work” is not really to make a full illustration of the situation. I’m sure you enthusiasts wouldn’t go to a garage and tell them your car “didn’t work”, would you? You could also no more expect a doctor to give you a complete diagnosis based on the claim: “I don’t feel very well”. There are a number of reasons why a Trackstar may not respond at a given time and they are mostly surmountable; they do not necessarily mean that the unit is beyond function. Such possible reasons should be explained to you at the time of your enquiry, you having been identified as a Trackstar subscriber; obviously it would be irresponsible and potentially hazardous to the security of your property to discuss them in detail here.



Being told to “move your car because it can’t be contacted” doesn’t necessarily mean it can’t be contacted or located at all where it is. It may be necessary for you to fulfil certain functions to eliminate other possible reasons connected with environment, habits and use for your unit not responding to commands. It would simply not be sensible to respond to the first failure of a unit to respond by assuming it is beyond redemption. Therefore owners may be required to undertake certain, possibly confusing, practices to narrow down the likely causes of the initial results of any test carried out. After all, not being able to contact your car while it’s in your garage is not necessarily any shortcoming. Remember, if your car were stolen, it wouldn’t be in your garage.



“I just rang them and it took ages to get through”, “I’m off to ring them now”, “It’s been five minutes and now ten”. Obviously if you are all encouraging each other to ring the same phone number when you wouldn’t ordinarily have done so traffic on that line will, inevitably, become heavy and slow. Consider the amount of time you have to queue for petrol when someone mentions that there may be a shortage.



It is obviously encouraging, though far from surprising, that so many of you have responded detailing the positive outcome of your tests and how pleased you are. RAC Trackstar is the best-performing stolen vehicle recovery system available but, inevitably, no such system in the world is completely and totally infallible and no-one could make such a claim. It is the best it is possible to be and, with new legislation coming to the industry in the near future, RAC Trackstar’s pre-preparation in order to be ready for it will put it head and shoulders above the field.



Finally, anyone can make his car and all its protection systems considerably more secure by paying careful attention to what is done with the keys. Various Police forces have run campaigns recently encouraging people to take particular care of their car keys. If your keys are stolen then, as far as your car is concerned, it’s you who are driving and a theft may not be detected for quite some time – sometimes too long. Think about what you do when you arrive home, for example, and don’t drop your keys on the table inside the door. From there they can be stolen through the letterbox. Don’t leave the keys lying around if you have a party; one TS customer had his car stolen (and recovered, of course) twice for exactly that reason. If you’re out and take off your jacket, don’t leave your keys in it.



Any of these simple practices will mean it is less likely you will have to rely on our services but, should you have to, you may be assured that you have the best system available. You may have heard tracking system operators proudly declaiming that their average stolen vehicle recovery time is less than four hours. The average time from reporting to recovery for RAC Trackstar is around 57 minutes.




Best Wishes,

Operations, RAC Trackstar.

ex-webby

Thank you for taking the time to respond.
Regards

webmaster

marklemac

Can I just clarify that the RAC do not mind their Trackstar clients calling them and asking for a 'systems check' just to put their minds at rest.

Thanks.

wheelie_sti

Thats correct guys, saw the thread, rang them up, 6 mins later, is your car at ........ why yes it is thankyou.

Really helpfull, she did mention however that a variety of factors can upset a successful trace. All of which I will NOT go into in live forum for obvious reasons. Call them up and ask them, there very good actually.

wheelie_sti

*Sonic*

Wow Im impressed for RAC to respond

Keefy, ok its not a grand, its 900 odd quid, but closer to the grand than 900 quid

In response to the RAC's comments, I have been told I have to go and start the engine and drive the car at 'least' round the block before they can try and locate it (not very good if its on the back of a low loader being stolen) as it couldnt be located, and absolutly nothing could & can be done unless I drive the car for a while

Im not waiting for a phone call back, as I have to phone back once my car has been driven, I have a genuine need for checking that my tracker is working correctly, which I explained when I made the call

Nope it would be in someone elses garage/container/lockup more than likely

I will be more than happy to post positive feedback once I get some

Steve

4horsemen

Unit goes in to a sleep mode after 6hrs so it doesnt drain the car battery - it will wake up if its moved in any way - so it will wake up if its put on a low loader!!

Accountingscoob

I phoned to get my system checked, they tracked it no problem.

*Sonic*

I was informed that it isnt connected to the car battery

r

rasher mate, i was told(by ractrackstar) the tracking device uses the 'GSM' network not gps!,o2 infact!.
the reason i know this is .....yes i asked for a self track on my motor,and no it wasn't working .
back to the dealers,main fuse had blown!...glad i checked!.
customer service spot on though.

BishopDevious

I have just had mine fitted. Once the engineer had fitted everything he asked me check the car and that everything was working. Neither of us had noticed that he hadnt fixed the rear seat in properly. I saw it that night as I put my computer in the boot.

Because of some mixup the system was not setup with O2 so the engineer said he would call back the next day to get me to start the car so they could check the track. When called the following day I told him about the seat and asked him what I needed to do to get it on properly. He said dont worry he would be right over after his next job and sort it out. He kept apologising, I wasnt that bothered after all I had inspected the car and not noticed it.

He was round that afternoon to sort it out. He stripped the system down again and checked it all before sorting out the seat. I have only good things to say about their instillation dept, they kept me informed as to when the engineer was comming and when theres a minor problem they were falling over themselves to help. If RAC operations are reading this, your man Bri from Rotherham is a star!

Still have to phone RAC though as the pack didnt include any details as to what to do if the car gets nicked . Evidently I should have card with telephone numbers on too, LOL.

*Sonic*

As I said i would

Mine is all working a treat now, many thanks for RAC Trackstar's help too

Nick@avs

As with all products, a great deal is down to the installation. Any issues should be dealt with initially by the installer. The last thing in the world any Tracking company needs is "Doom Merchants" telephoning them and clogging up the system. There is a procedure in place to check these systems as a matter of course and I'm sure 99.999999999.........% of CORRECTLY installed systems are OK. The point I'm making is there is no need to worry!

As implied previously there can be reasons why a systems cannot be tracked and for security reasons it would be extremely foolish for anybody with half a brain cell to expand on these issues, but one can be assured that in a genuine case your car would be tracked successfully.

Steve vRS

No there isn't! You have to phone up and get a check carried out!

Steve

Catherine

Safe Speed is their new option that detects Speed Camera's when you pass a fixed site. Anyway I went past the same 2 fixed location speed cameras today and the blasted thing still isn't working. Called the call centre to complain and they said they couldn't do anything until Tuesday.

It's just as well it is free for the 1st 3 months and at the moment I don't think that I will be continuing with that option.

PICKLE

Excuse my ignorance, but what is the number to call to ask for a system check?? I have never done this, and now my curiousity is burning after reading this thread!

Cheers

Steve vRS

0808 100 999 1

Steve

Ajax

I have got TRACKER Horizon on my car.

Phoned Tracker:

Asked about getting it checked and they want £80.00 to do it.

Asked about getting it checked for location and they don’t do that, only when its stolen.

Asked what happens if stolen and does not work and was told in that event I would have to talk to a director about it.

NOT BAD SERVICE FOR NEARLY A GRANDS WORTH OF SECURITY!

Looks like RAC Tracker have the edge on customer service.

Wonder if the company TRACKER reply to this observation

davedipster

Checked my RAC Trackstar by phoning RAC yesterday and it worked fine, they gave the road it was parked on and a nearby landmark, 03 sti by the way.

Dipster

BlackWrxScooby

Since I started this thread I'll say thanks to the RAC for replying, my car is supposedly being fixed today but they haven’t sent any spare parts like they said they would so I hope the engineer brings some with him. Will let you all know what was wrong with it if he turns up.

BlackWrxScooby

I'm back working again and maybe I was a little hard on the RAC, it turns out they could track me but only using the GSM signal because the GPS receiver had gone faulty. The engineer came and replaced the little box and everything is fine now.

He did say i need to move the car and phone them just to check they can find it.

Catherine

After 3 phone calls, trackstar have called to arrange a visit to look at the Speed Safe function on our Trackstar Plus. Hopefully they should be able to sort it out soon

Ajax

Good customer service from TRACKER

The installation of my Clifford was not up to standard and this got me thinking about testing the Tracker, prompted by this thread

I posted on here about the poor back up service from Tracker from their help desk, I received a reply from an e-mail, to Alex Dittman
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This was his reply


Dear XXXXXX

Thanks for you mail.

I am concerned to hear that you had problems with the quality of
installation to your car. Our unit should be fitted to the same standard
as the factory fitted accessories so that it wouldn't be easily spotted
during a theft. If you have any concerns for this viewpoint then please contact
me on the number below, and we will gladly come out to inspect the
workmanship free of charge.

In the meantime I can confirm that the unit appears to be healthy. One of
the functions of the Horizon unit is to report its position to us on a
monthly basis, which it has done reliably.
The last time we heard from it was on the 24/4/04 (on schedule) at 14.47.
The unit reported that it was 1.2km west of xxxxxxxx.

I hope this helps by way of reassurance, but if you have any further
concerns please feel free to call me

Alex Dittman

Installations Dept. Technical
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Now what more could you ask for, I am a happy bunny now!

Thanks ALEX

BAH

Just had my trackstar checked, took them 5mins to return my call and tell me exacly were the car was parked, they gave the road it was parked on and a nearby landmark..

Great Service, thay had no problems in running the test.

olliecampbell

iTrader: (3)

Definitely something worth getting checked out.

W 12 X T C

i just phoned to check mine and was told i had sold the car in january!!!!!!!!!!!

it is not under my name anymore. but the reg is the same.
will phone again tommorrow to see what the **** is going on.

cheers for the thread or i would never have known.

Rasher

That's scarey mate!!!!!

olliecampbell

iTrader: (3)

Thats is very scary!