After 12 months with an RAC Trackstar device in my car I decided to contact their customer services department to ask them to perform a test signal to see if it was working.

It wasnt - two x 1hour long attempts to find me and no cigar.

I will be contacting them tomorrow to discuss service calls etc - and will update this thread in due course. Just in case you have never thought of a test signal, its worth a try...

P

 

if you do a search i think you will find that you are not the first...........

 

You've reminded me, I've had my STi for well over a year and they havent contacted me re-renewal. Sounds like a pretty useless bunch to me?
JohnD

 

Hi John,

Ditto, After a year I phoned them and they said they couldnt tell me when it run out! So I asked to be sent and invoice and it never turned up!

its been two months now!

last I heard was invoice was in the post... that was over a week ago!

 

Useless anyway, the scum have sussed them out.

 

Is it worth us paying out for it when we get ours back on the road then ?

Wanted it for security, not paying for something that doesn't work !

 

Problem is, when its standard fitment, you need it to validate your insurance.

Was it only one years cover that came with the new STi's ?

Then mine runs out on 1st Sept, not heard anything for renewal yet.

 

At the end of the day is a renewal really necessary?

Would they really refuse to find your car if it was stolen? If the police asked them? I doubt it.

Makes you think

 

Four months ago I bought my STi PPP and was offered a "we'll pay the difference between insurance payout and the ticket price you paid" type of policies, but I didn't take them up on it. It only cost £280 for 3 years. I'm regrettin this now as I think this would have been better than paying Trackstar after the freebie year. The tracker unit is still in the car anyway and any proper thief (i.e. not joyrider) would still assume it was active and be delayed or have to take extra measures. To be honest if it gets nicked and thrashed I wouldn't want it back. Having a tracker matters not a jot to elephant.co.uk.

 

BlackJax is the way to go.
Unfortunately, no insurance companies recognise it, most have never heard of it, and many insist on a Tracker, which as stated is a waste of time.
Insurance is a joke - they are in it to make money (understandably) but the insistance on tracker and non-recognition of BlackJax is a pure rip-off.

 

I have to agree with Hugo, I wouldn't want my car back if some piece of $hit nicked it. Unless he was still in it...

My view is that it's better to have systems in place that stop it from being taken in the first place. This will also stop any high speed car chases with the police where someone could get killed.

Blackjax or a gearbox lock as well as increasing your security at home may be a better move.

Chris

 

Got on on mine and it works fine. Its been on the back of a tow turck 4 times since i have had it and they have rang me within 15 mins everytime

 

I had trouble getting my subscription renewed, rang them up eventually having not heard from them and they took my details etc. Didn't ever see any paperwork and so rang them back to check, they had no record that I'd renewed it. So, I went through the whole process again and this time got an receipt in the post. At least I know it was renewed, maybe.

The car battery died one night in the middle of the night and set the alarm off in the process. No call from Tracker, but that is probably to be expected as the car wasn't actually moving at the time. Phoned them the next day to check that the Tracker was working and they said it was, they didn't give me any other info so that didn't really fill me with confidence, just a sort of "of course it's working..." They certainly didn't tell me where it was or anything.

Since then it's been on the back of a tow truck at least once, and perhaps on another occasion but I'm not absolutely sure of that. I forgot totally about the tracker and didn't ring them to say it was being towed in. Need not have bothered, they didn't contact me anyhow. Looks like they knew nothing about it.

It also makes a number of ferry crossings each year and I've never bothered to tell the Tracker folks as they have never been aware it has happened. Perhaps they just ignore vehicles travelling across the sea on regular ferry routes but my guess is that it doesn't work in a ferry.

All told I've been less than impressed to be honest, there might be totally reasonable explainations for what I've seen but even if there are the fact that the Tracker didn't see it getting picked up and loaded on to a tow truck indicates to me that it's not going to stop the car getting nicked. The car came fitted with the Tracker as standard and so I keep up the payments for the insurance but on the performance I personally have experienced I wouldn't pay to fit one myself.

 

I went to France at the weekend and was called by RAC (on the RETURN joruney) to ask whether my car was OK! Apparently they should phone whenever the car is moved with the engine turned off. Am a little confused why they did not call me on the outward journey though!!!

 

sounds as useful as a chocolate fireguard!