In Light of Marv's Stolen Car, My security solution and recommendation Options

[Robarabian]

Hi everyone,

Who would have thunk that our cars would become valuable enough to steal in the manner it is happening. If you scroll the FB and other sites, it is happening more and more.

My answer to helping you secure getting it back comes from my LE experience. A Tracker. I use the one I post at the bottom of this paragraph. They are under a hundred bucks, and the air cards 60 bucks a year. I have 3 of them. 2 are hard wired and I keep one as a "floater" to just slap on whatever car I want. I bought these years ago when my kids were new drivers because they would forget to text that they made it to school and it was easy to just live time, dial up the car's location.

You can set parameters to send you a text if the car goes outside of the geofence you select. Ie, travels more than 5 miles from home or wherever. You can set a speed alarm that will send you a text if it exceeds whatever speed you select. So say you think your mechanic is the same guy as the valet from Ferris Bueller's Day off, you will know the car is doing 100 mph...


They are easy to hide, and use cellular and unlike an Air Tag, they don't tell anyone they are there.

My insurance company provides a discount on my daily driver as it is considered a "tracking device" to assist in recovery. I think for the low cost, you get a high peace of mind with these.

I hated reading the story about Marv's car and pray for its recovery. It is like losing a family member after the time, effort and energy we spend nurturing them through life.

Robert




https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07W7YJYSH?psc=1&...product_details

[vitamin914]

Using an offshore tracking company could be a concern to some. I had an alarm company that shut its doors (iSmartAlarm) making their web based alarm for the home a pile of scrap electronics. Same could happen here with the chinese GPS trackers.

Apple AirTags or Chipolo trackers all report their presence to avoid being used by stalkers. Not a great solution to alert the car's thief the car has a tracker onboard.

Another idea is to get a cheap used or old iPhone, flick the silent switch, get a $5 data only SIM card and use the FindMy network (not sure if Android has something similar - they would be cheaper than old iPhones).

I probably have an old 4G capable iPhone in the back of a desk somewhere. My idea was to see if there is 12v available under the passenger seat (in that mess called the seatbelt interlock) to charge the old iPhone and leave it there under the seat. This would not alert the thief like the AirTag would. Apple isn't going to disappear before any of those "no name" tracker companies.

Of course using a purely dedicated car tracker has many positives too (like tracking history and Geo-fencing).