nickdman

I have been researching car alarms for the past month. I want something to protect my blazer because it is the top stolen vehicle where I live. After much time I have yet came across a car alarm that is affordable and would still allow my blazer to be sitting in my driveway the next morning.

Does anyone have any ideas?

I am one of those ones who would rather have the car explode than let a car theif get away in it. (This gives me the satisfaction of knowing that I eliminated some dickless shit head)

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soccerchamp76

Viper alarm system, comes with a keychain transponder that alerts you when the alarm goes off and what part of the car alarm went off (windows, tire, etc.)

mystic511

Lo-jack also deters alot of theives, since it's usually randomly placed and the last thing anyone wants is for the police to find their chop shop.

Also, if you know any electrical stuff (or know someone who does) install an electrical switch to cut of power to ignition.

It's basically a common breaker switch that you can hide anywhere in your car (even mask it as a button on your radio). It would cut off the entire power source to ignition so that nobody could start your car unless they knew where the switch was.

Car alarms in general just deter petty theives, the professionals pretty much all know how to bypass those things.

bottom line: if they want your car, they'll get it. It's just how much effort they want to exert.

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miked10270

Hi Nickdam,

Car alarms, like any "security" measures don't prevent theft. What you're buying is "Time, Noise & Hassle" for any potential thief.

First-off, buy an immobiliser. A devcent commercial one would need to be professionally fitted 'cos ALL the wires are black and they replace a significant part of the engine wiring. The curent ones don't simply stop the engine being started, what they do is allow the engine to be started BUT cut the fuel supply as soon as the accelerator (gas) pedal is pressed In effect the car will start, but stalls as soon as the thief tries to drive it. starts again & stalls again & so on. The point is that if the engine starts then the thief won't go looking for an immobiliser to bypass. The other thing is that it works off the fuel system which is batter since thee is a simple way to bypass ANY ignition based immobiliser.

A cheap perimiter car alarm will deter the casual thief - why try YOUR car when there's plenty around without alarms?

Another anti-theft device which again needs to be professionally fitted is a brake locker. This is a device fitted to the car's brake system, close to the master cylinder. When activated it sets a one way valve into operation. You can drive the car, but when you brake, the hydraulics stay pressurised. A car with one of these fitted is stolen as far as the first junction

Vehicle trackers can be expensive, not just for the fitting but you then have to pay the annual fee for the tracking service Also, the "tracker" isn't activated until you report your car stolen. Top line ones actually use GPS and report back via satellite and include "Unauthorised movement" sensor to effectively report your car stolen for you as it's happening and before you're aware of it! At the end of the day, vehicle trackers don't actually prevent car theft, they help ensure stolen car recovery.

What do your insurers recognise? Most insurers will give a discount for professionally fitted car alarms of certain types. Over say 3 years, the extra cost of a "professional" car alarm & immobiliser may well be more than paid for in reduced premiums.

Mike.

Atomic Pinkie

I went for a silencer...you have to remove the kill switches in a specific order or you're fubared AND the car came with an immobilizer

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nash

Something cheap would probably be a kill switch. You can hide it where you want but it's not an alarm so you still won't know when someone's trying to break in. I guess one of the "perks" of driving a POS (although I love my car) is that no one would want to steal it.

Spyder_Venom

If a thief wants your car/truck bad enough there is nothing that a car alarm will do. Around here they have been dressing up a tow truck operaters (moving cars in the way) and just throwing them on a flat bed. Don't get me wrong, an alarm is a great idea but there is nothing in the field of protection that is perfect.

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james t kirk

I just pull the distributor rotor out.

Good luck finding a rotor for an old british car!!

noblejr

two things: backup battery and alarms inside the car too. It only takes 5-10 seconds to smash a window, pop the hood, and cut the siren wire. Once it's silenced they can take their time. If you locate the alarm and sirens in obscure locations, it will be more likely to be 'given up' on.

Peryn

I highly reccommend Lo-Jack too. For me, at least, the insurance gives a *significant* discount on the car if lojack is installed. It pays for itself in the first year i belive (maybe a tad longer) then just keeps saving you money on insurance. On the new cars, it seems to be worth it for hte savings alone, if not the anti-theft deterrent.

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acpower

this wasn't my topic, but nice reply miked

Stare At The Sun

What is this lojack,and where can i learn more about it?

BoCo

Just get an actual live viper and keep it in there.

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BigTruck1956

LoJack is a device placed in the car that allows the car's location to be tracked if you report it stolen.
check out http://www.lojack.com/ for more info.

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Cynthetiq

having been a repo man at one time... the last sentence works well... when we were bored we used to practice alarm, kill switch.. whatever...we used to leave notes in people's cars... "If we want it we'll take it."

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telekinetic2

Pasted from ClubSI, by a car theif:

You see all you dumbass honda drivers just dont understand basics. If I set your alarm off, i can turn it off in less than 20 seconds.
Break window, pull hood release, turn battery off.
But I can do it without pulling the hood release, too. I can rip off your fender liner, and the cable is sitting right there. And i believe it can be done directly at the hood latch at the car. Opening the hood carefully does not set off the alarm, UNLESS you have a sensor there. Either way, I'll have the battery off in less than a few seconds..
UNLESS you have a backup battery.

I can get into your car, damn easily. I can take a flat head screwdriver to the side of the window where that tab, that keeps it in place is. This doesnt set off the alarm. I can than reach in, and unlock the car door. Than I'm in.
Sometimes you can block off the auto-lock with the civic DX piece, I can rip this off or do it with ONE screwdriver. Unless you remove the entire power-door lock system.

I can pick your door lock, or smash it in, pull it off and than get in the car.
The only way you can stop me from doing this, is removing power door locks, and shaving off the actual lock. I think civic 4dr, (rear door) pieces are exact replacements.

Ok so i cant get into your car through a door. It's ok. Push the window down, and pull the trunk release cable. If you locked it, HAH, what a joke. Rip out that panel, and pull the cable. I can push your rear seats down, and I'm in the car.

You can only prevent this by removing trunk release cable, getting an electric one controlled by remote. And if you shave the actual door lock.

If you stupid bastards have gone to such great lengths to prevent me from jacking your POS civic, I can break the window, and clear away all the glass, hop in. I dont like doing this though, it's loud, attracts attention, and will fuck me up when i slide in.
--------------------------
OK, I'm in the car. The alarm is going off. What's the No.1 worst thing? the alarm horn is in the engine bay. I can disconnect it (pull really hard, rips off) or just deal with it.
It's DEAFENING if you put a 2nd horn in the actual interior of the car itself. I wont even spend the 2 minutes jacking your radio and speakers, i dont want to go deaf.

If you have "the club" on your steering wheel, i can saw your wheel to get it off in 15 seconds. Or freeze the lock itself and break it. There are rare setups that have huge metal covers over the wheel, and THAN you put the club over this. Those must be a pain in the ass.

Autolock: A good deturrent, i have seen stolen cars with them STILL on the car, but a good thief can rip those puppies off.

OK, now if you have your basic alarm stuff, it takes time but i can go around it. Ignition and fuel kill switches are a total bitch, but i can rip off your panels and carpet, and get to the root of it, it just causes more delay.

Bolts: If i am here just to steal seats, there are websites that sell tool-specific bolts, so it makes it damn near impossible to get the bolt off without the right tool.

Some secuirty systems have a good range that alert the car owner i am stealing your shit. On a stock car you have less than 2 minutes before it's gone. With all the stuff listed above, it'll take at least 10minutes to figure out whats going on and have your car in my hands.

Lo-Jack. Fuck Lo Jack! If you are asleep, (i will be jacking your car around 2-4am in the morning, by the way)
I only need 2-3 hours to strip what I want. It will take an hour for the cops to locate me. So I do what i need to do in about 3 hours.

If you know your car has been stolen in the last hour, and have lo-jack, you will PROBABLY get it back. I'll rought it up a bit, you'll need some new panels and i'll have redlined the shit out of it just because it was FUN!

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If a thief cannot steal your car, and has risked his neck, and his time into stealing it, we will probably be really, really pissed off. Fuck you for making your car safe. SO VERY often, the body panels get kicked in, and/or keyed.

Towing: More rare, but ask the average Integra-Type-R guy, they fear this more than anything. Only if you are tightly parallel parked, can you avoid this. It depends if there is something in front or behind you, because it is where they would tow you from, but turn your wheels all the way, depending on your situation.
And it's not always some shady tow-truck driver. A shitty truck can easily be modifed to tow cars quickly.

If your car is often parked, reliably the same place, house, work, etc.....they can research it, and now what to do. From the outside they can see what exactly to steal, how to get it, how long they have, how often you check your car. If they set off the alarm and you come out, they will know your reaction time. I check on my car at least every hour while i'm at work or school.
[/thief]

So yeah guys. You can virtually make your car unstealable, unless they tow it, or have an hour or so of time on their hands.
SHIT loads of engine stuff can be done to stop them. Unplug your injectors, but have them sit there as if they are in. If you have an MSD cap and coil, remove the plug connection the two, so there is no ignition coil. Or unplug your ECU. Havent you seen guys walking around the mall, late at night with an ECU in their hands ?

Dont bling. Wheels, or any expensive mods that can be easily stolen and sold on ebay or honda-tech or clubsi's "For Sale" forums are a big treat.

Racers: A car that looks fast, a turbo, a nice engine (so our stock B16A2 make it high profile already) any go-fast components, thieves love, because often a thief has a honda of his own. He worked for a few weeks of his miserable existance and bought a crx, or an old EG. And he wants to street race dat shit yo! So he's going to steal stuff from his car to make it fast.

lakefire

i know onstar offered by GM does a good job for tracking theft....

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Spyder_Venom

I still think one of the best things is dogs ... Its not fool proof but I know a bad guy doesn't want to become hamburger.

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Cynthetiq

some repo men used to feed hamburger meat with sleeping pills in it to put them little puppies to sleep...

i never did...

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miked10270

Like Telekinetic said, you don't buy "Security", you buy "Time & Noise".

I don't know exactly what kind of tracking system "Lo-Jack" is, but remember that trackers are NOT anti-theft devices, they're "Recovery aids". You don't advertise that you have a tracking device fitted to your vehicle 'cos there is a limit to where it can be concealed. The idea is that the person who stole your car never finds out it has a tracker fitted, he's still scratching his head trying to figure how the cops found / stopped him.

There ARE some very sophisticated tracking devices available including one satellite tracker which goes off if "unauthorised movement" is detected. I.E. If the tracker detects that your car is moving without the key being in the ignition then it reports a theft (!!). It'll do this automatically without the owner reporting his car stolen.

In the UK "Securicor" manage this system as part of their fleet management services.

Mike.

dtheriault

i had a friend who was a repo guy. he could get into both of my cars and past the steering wheel lock without breaking it or cutting the wheel in under 10 seconds. then he would pop the hood cut the battery wire and tow the car.

he told me to put a back up battery on the car alarm and to have 2 horns. it's worked so far. i also lock my steering wheel everynight by turning it far to the right or left.

kill switches are good.

when i had a vw bus i used to just pull the main coil wire from the distributor cap off and keep it in my pocket. who carries one of those around?

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doubleaught

Hmmm I'd like input from that thief about my car... it has a passive antitheft system where each key has a radio transmitter in it and the engine computer will not work unless the unique code has been transmitted.

I'm sure the maker of my vehicle could generate a new one and thus a pro could steal my car (duh), but outside of this I'm thinking a thief could only mess it up in my driveway or tow it??
Just looking for vulnerabilities so I can be safer...

etla

Buddy of mine use to do this with an old F-100 he had. Course an old ford 300-6 will run okey dokey on only 5 cylinders (the spark plug wires are the same as a coil wire only longer).

dtheriault

my bus had a locking engine door and i don't think most avg. thiefs would mess too long with a car that for some reason won't start.

it was way cheaper than an alarm.

the thing that kicked me about older vws is that if you hit the triangle window in the right spot repeatedly the window lock would shift until eventually the window would open from outside and then you can just reach in and open the door.

came in handy often.

i also heard from a cop friend that you can use a tennis ball with a slit to force air into the door cylinder on cars that use a number code to open the door. this was 15 years ago and maybe they've fixed the problem now.

i also heard that honda keys are useless and you can basically shave one down and use it to force start almost any honda.

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