phill chinn

if you ring tracker and enquire about the service, they all ways quote a 100% recovery rate, is this true ? does anyone know if this is bull**** ? and can they make this claim if not true??

Stuart H

I'm not quite sure about the 100% record for the scheme as a whole. I know my recovery rate for vehicles equipped with Tracker is 100% (6 in total).

Last time I spoke to a friend who works at Tracker, she was saying that they have now passed the 1100+ arrest mark with over 5000 recoveries. This equates to over <B>£50 million</B> worth of motor car!

It works!!

[This message has been edited by Stuart H (edited 03 February 2001).]

tarmacterrorist

Stef

I have seen the Skamp unit in operation & am quite impressed. It is also tracked in over 169 countries. Not sure if the other companies can do this.

Anyone know if someone has had Skamp fitted ?
Its £350 fitted (I enquired) but downside is that the monthly monitoring fee is £15.

I am going to have something for sure but not sure which system to go for.

kryten

Stuart, do you have a similar recovery rate for GPS based systems??

Is there a difference in 'response' from the police (in general) between an active car getting hold of a tracker signal and the control room being notified of the current location of a GPS based vehicle?

Personally, I can't make up my mind.

Tracker's big plus seems to be the ease of use for the police getting the car back, though is this true in complicated inner city areas, with lots of streets running parallel? How can you tell which one its on?

The GPS systems' big plus is that they can tell where it is straight away - no need to wait for a police unit to pick up the signal as one can be sent in the right direction.

Anyone had any experience of the Tracker Horizon, which combines both? Seems like the dog's danglies, but dunno if I want to pay such a massive amount......

kryten

Just seen Tim Milne's rant in this month's EVO about his Tracker protected Skyline going walkies and staying missing.....

Has anyone ever found any independant figures for ANY of the tracking devices that gives both cars recovered and, more importantly, percentage of cars NOT recovered??

I would assume that these would be closely guarded secrets by most of the tracking companies, but this is the sort on info insurers are likely to use for underwriting, so it _may_ exist somewhere......

As a side question, I'm interested in how visible the GPS antenna is for the systems. While you may be able to hide the unit itself, _something_ needs line of sight to the sky to be able to locate accurately and in my experience these are normally a bit too visible to be hidden completely.

Also a bit confused about how the 'active' systems know its been stolen. I know eGuard has a secret pin switch, but how do the others 'know' and how do they protect against having your keys stolen?

James Douglas

I too saw the Evo Rant..

The fact is that if your up against hardened professional criminals they are going to get your car anyway. Whatever firms come up with, crims find a way to get round it. I understand that they use some sort of jamming device that prevents the tracker signal being sent out. Like the other threads say - whats the point if theres NO ONE LISTENING!!!!

If your car gets knicked by someone who can bypass the Cat1 alarm - then its gone!! Cat 1 alarms are pretty decent!! We spend too much money on these tracker things.

I'd like to see figures of the 1100+ arrests, how many cars disapeared whilst under protection?

I understand that some of the tracking systems take a "snapshot" of where the car was before it went missing. Great - they can ring me up and tell me it got knicked from where i parked it last and was shoved in a van and then disapeared off the screen!!!! Great - that'll get the buggers!!!

Trackers main flaw is the fact that it relies on the Police to find the car - and who's to say its gonna be in 1 peice when you get it back? They are too busy speed trapping us speeders to worry about knicked cars - wheres the revenue for them in that!!!

One other question - Has anyone lost a car that had a tracker fitted that was part of a requirement/discount on their insurance. If so did the company still pay out???

mutant_matt

Chaps,

It seems to be the concensus that with Tracker only a Police car can follow the signal. The engineer that installed mine told me that there are VLF transmitters all around the country which can monitor the signal from your car. This is how they tell when it's been nicked. The Police having a receiver also enables them to follow the signal but Tracker HQ can still see where the car is as well.

Matt.

barge

Sorry to disagree with all of you.

If some scumbag takes my Scooby i dont want it back. Ever !!

Who know what they will do in it, how they will treat it, if the insurance co return it and fix any body dammage are you covered for them having thrashed the nuts off it and it blows up 10 miles up the road ?? I think not !!!

Just my 2pence worth.

blp

A number of us at a scooby meet sometime ago were informed by an ARV team that Tracker Reciever Units were not only installed in a number of cop cars cars, but also at major road intersections like the M4 / M25 etc etc.
Many of you have commented on the helicopter...apparently the chopper has a tracker RADIUS of 25 miles.