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My Buick has OnStar, so no need for Apple Air Tag. The Club (and variations) is available on Amazon. For maximum effectiveness, use The Club plus Apple Air Tag. You need a visual deterrence, hence the need for The Club. Contrary to popular opinion, thieves look for easy targets, not for challenges that take extra time and increase the risk of being seen in the act.
Air Tags use bluetooth. And it has a "anti-stalking" feature where it will alert the phone if the air tag is connected to it for too long. Albeit this may not be a bad thing in a stolen car (letting the thieves know they are "tagged"). But it also takes a good bit of time (over an hour?).
Does it combat car theft? I'd say it can help in retrieving it AFTER it's stolen. But not much of a deterrent.
Plenty of options for The Club and like devices around. Amazon is a good place to start.
A tracking device would be helpful, but only if the police could/would quickly investigate the location. Recent events aside, most of us aren't going to track down and confront thieves, so just knowing the location might not help much. It's my understanding that a large number of thefts are essentially driven straight to a shipping container and are quickly too far away for LE to track down anyway.
I recently replaced a vehicle, and the new model comes only with keyless (push button start) ignition. There was no other choice for my model. These have serious security vulnerabilities, and it's depressing to watch how easily thieves spoof the signal and drive away in them. I spent quite a few hours trying to learn about this, and talked with 3 different repair shops about ways to guard against it.
From what I learned, prevention is about the only option we have -- it's unlikely anything will happen quickly enough to get your car back. So to prevent starting the car, I looked into kill switches, ghost immobilizers, battery lockouts (low amperage bypass), and a variety of additional alarms and lockouts.
The mechanic I use is very experienced and I've been a customer for over 20 years. He strongly discouraged aftermarket immobilizing systems on new cars, due to the sensitivity of modern electronics. Too many customers stranded when their car's computers decided the new equipment was a theft attempt. And the aftermarket equipment dealers only guarantee their product, not the expense of returning to the dealer to get everything reset if the car objects to it. He has stopped installing immobilizers and kill switches entirely, except for old vehicles.
After a long talk about the main theft types (relay and rolljam) he explained that the best way is to either inhibit the key<->car RF signals, or just put a [drumroll] Club on the steering wheel (still sold in auto parts stores, saw one this week). Also, of course, keeping the car in a locked garage is great, but we can't do that when commuting or traveling.
The only electrical device he was willing to install was the battery lockout key, with the low amp bypass. But this requires opening the hood each time to remove the large key (it's huge -- the starting current has to pass through it). For those wondering; the low amp bypass is a small circuit that supplies enough current to keep all the radios and presets and various small electronics happy, but not enough current to start the car. If the thief gets in and tries, the low (15) amp fuse pops and he's left with a dead car. I couldn't see using this on a day to day basis, so opted not to get it.
So I bought a good Faraday pouch for the keys, and I put the club on the wheel anywhere I'm worried.
Don't even get me started on catalytic converters -- makes my blood boil...
Would a add-on motion sensing alarm, separate from any builtin alarm, be useful as a deterrent ?
Some years ago, my son and I added a M-S alarm (with its own siren) to his soft top Jeep. It had an on-off switch that we hid in a box behind the tailgate. We did need to switch it each time Jeep waa driven.
One story. Son parks the Jeep at a nearby Park-N-Ride. A few hours later I get call from police re alarm going off (due to high winds). I had to drive up and flip switch. It did have a sensitivity adjustment.
Start with basic steps
1. Leave nothing of value visible inside the car.
2. Have all windows raised fully and doors locked
Traditional car alarms are useless for anti-theft since most people ignore the alarm.
Look into reputable automotive electronics shops to see what they have available. Depending on your vehicle you may already have some form of anti theft protection built into your vehicle. these measures will reduce the chance of theft of vehicle. But if they want your rims, tires, catalytic converter, stereo, speakers, etc then none of these devices will stop them. When I was into aftermarket stereo systems I choose to keep the factory head unit and demanded the factory speaker covers remained leaving my car with a hidden amplifier and hidden aftermarket speakers. I keep the factory rims and tire size making them less likely to be stolen. Today some factory rims have become popular with thieves but they’re usually up trim rims. https://www.knoe.com/content/news/Ar...510567171.html
https://www.local10.com/news/2017/02...ed-by-thieves/
The second link has some tips for rim thieves. One guy I know got tired of the rims being stolen and somehow found matching size steel rims. He had them painted black (most likely a rust prevention paint) and left them without hubcaps. No more thefts of rims.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mshultz
My Buick has OnStar, so no need for Apple Air Tag. The Club (and variations) is available on Amazon. For maximum effectiveness, use The Club plus Apple Air Tag. You need a visual deterrence, hence the need for The Club. Contrary to popular opinion, thieves look for easy targets, not for challenges that take extra time and increase the risk of being seen in the act.
Similarly, my wife's Outback has a feature that allows us to locate the car, turn it on, or shut it off by our iPhones.
I doubt that any of these features, ours, OnStar or Air Tag will do anything to deter thieves, unless they are smart enough and do research to avoid these vehicles. The real benefit is to be able to find it quickly, and if you report it immediately to the police it may be recovered in one piece. The problem is that if they take it at night it will likely be parted out and on a ship overseas when you get up and find it missing.
One sure thing if you are willing to do it every time, or in bad neighborhoods:
Open the hood, start the engine, and disconnect the easily accessible electrical plugs one by one. Do this procedure until you find one which stalls the engine. Do not mark it, but remember it. Once the car is parked, disconnect that plug and push it back, but NOT ALL THE WAY. Thief gets in, he has your keys, car starts but stalls immediately, or won't start at all. Thief mutters the F word repeatedly, and moves on for something easier.
I think what might work pretty well is, if there is a security software/device that, once activated, can alert you via phone or its own device, the moment your car vibrates, or window broken, or ignition is turned on, or is driven. This way, the moment crime occurs you can tend to the vehicle and will likely prevent the vehicle from being taken.
Is there something like this in the market place?
I think only WE the car owners can be diligent enough to prevent theft.
Tracking system only means that the police will chase the car and wreck it. I guess you get a cool video on YouTube. The best protection is good insurance about it. I never understood that mentality police almost always total the car what was the point of chasing it down.
Lojack always worked well because police can track it right from their cars at least they used to not sure about now days if they still install the system. I know a guy who got his 86 Buick Grand National stolen outside of a restaurant. When he came out to leave it was gone, he called it in stolen and Lojack was activated police found it in 90 minutes parked in a garage at a chop shop about 10 miles away. Lojack system was land used a lower frequency it could be found even inside buildings. Air tag better than nothing I guess amount of money invested not much downside to putting one inside the car.
Apple now alerts the phone it's using. Although I just saw a video of an Ebke that was recovered guess the thieves didn't realize their phone was being used to track the bike they stole.
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