It's been a long time (15 years) since I've needed to look at car alarms... After what happened to my FC, I want a very, very good alarm for my FB. Anybody here know anything?

man i need one to for my FB...i would like to know some suggestions as well....

Alarms fucking Suck and nobody needs one.

Who's gonna steal an FB?

:p

Pager alarm

I worked in a high end car stereo shop through two years of college and finally decided that alarms are a waste of money. Why?

1. Alarms don't stop the smash-and-grab. If you leave anything out in plain sight, consider it gone whether you have an alarm or not if someone wants it badly enough.

2. Alarms don't really stop people from stealing cars. If they want it badly enough, they can simply tow it, hot wire it, bend up a corner of your hood and cut your battery cable... you get the idea.

3. No one pays any attention to alarms these days. Ever hear one of those stupid 6-tone alarms going off? How much attention did you give it? 3 seconds? 2? Did you even bother to see which direction the sound was coming from? Not likely. No one else does either.

4. The people that an alarm will prevent from thinking about breaking into your car probably wouldn't break into it in the first place.

5. Alarms call more attention to the car. Hmmmm... flashing LED on a car that didn't come with a factory alarm. What's he got in the trunk, I wonder?

Bottom line, alarms might have been a good idea at one time. However, years of miscalibrated sensors and hack jobs have made them all but worthless. No one pays attention to them any more and no one is likely to report anyone tampering with a car with an alarm sounding. Why? Because people set off their own alarms half the time.

That said, if you absolutely, positively, must have an alarm, buy a Clifford. They're probably the best quality alarm on the market, and the shops that install them are typically not your Best Buy / Circuit City I-once-fixed-the-cord-on-mom's-lamp, now-I-install-car-stereos shops.

Don't get a perimeter system with warn-away. It draws too much attention to your car and will more likely result in someone keying it than actually warning them away from touching the car. Door, hood, and hatch/trunk pin triggers and a decent shock sensor properly tuned are all you need. You don't want your alarm to be set off by every car with a loud exhaust or getting bumped by a street sweeper. You want it to go off when someone's really prying on a door, breaking a window, or when they've already gotten in. Pagers are a waste of money too.

I used to think I had to have the pimpest alarm available. I had an Alpine 8040 (if memory serves) that had dual radar zones, inside and outside the car, shock sensors, pin switches everywhere, starter kill, you name it. All it ended up doing was being a bonus for someone when I traded the car in.

My shop's high end alarm was Clifford. We never got one back for warranty or replacement. We sent in several Alpine alarms, however. The cheaper stuff like CrimeStopper works if set up right, but I was never impressed with the quality of the sensors you get with those systems.

Fucking WORD^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Pagers are a waste of money too.


How so?
Especially since you're saying that no one else cares if your alarm goes off.


Alarms don't really stop people from stealing cars. If they want it badly enough, they can simply tow it, hot wire it, bend up a corner of your hood and cut your battery cable... you get the idea.

They can't stop somebody from smashing your window, grabbing your radar detector and running, but a competently installed alarm should make it pretty hard to "hot wire".


Alarms call more attention to the car. Hmmmm... flashing LED on a car that didn't come with a factory alarm. What's he got in the trunk, I wonder?


I have a few issues with this:
1) There's no reason you MUST install that LED in a highly visible place
2) Not everybody knows what cars came with a factory alarm.
3) Calling attention to the fact that there's an alarm is really an arguable point. It's not as if your car is the only one in the world they have a chance to break into.

How so?
If you're close enough to hear your alarm go off, a pager is useless.
If you're far enough away that a pager is required, it's probably not going to do you much good either.
You have to have the pager with you, which means one more thing to pack around.
A pager can't tell you if it's only a false alarm.

Need any more reasons? :)

What are you going to do if you do get a page that your alarm has gone off? Confront the individual? The police aren't likely to show up in time and unless you can prevent damage by catching the thief before they break into the car and get started (assuming that they'd be scared off by your presence), no real good can come from confronting the thief in the act. Bodily harm, assault charges, need I say more? Let insurance handle it. That's what you pay for.

They can't stop somebody from smashing your window, grabbing your radar detector and running, but a competently installed alarm should make it pretty hard to "hot wire".If they're at all skilled, they can start your car without the help of the ignition, and if they want your car badly enough, they'll just tow it onto a flatbed and haul it off.

1) There's no reason you MUST install that LED in a highly visible placeTrue, but why not? A flashing LED accomplishes about as much as a full alarm system where inexperienced ("casual") thieves are concerned, and a professional thief probably isn't going to care no matter where you put it.

2) Not everybody knows what cars came with a factory alarm.It's not that hard to figure out that a 1st gen. RX-7 didn't, and don't make the mistake of thinking that car thieves don't know their targets.

3) Calling attention to the fact that there's an alarm is really an arguable point. It's not as if your car is the only one in the world they have a chance to break into.Not sure what you meant by this, but OK.

Best way to keep your car from getting stolen is to put a kill switch in a discreet location.


Or just drive a beater. That works too.

I take out my main fuses whenever I have to leave my car for an extended period of time. Let's see them try to drive off at night without lights, that's if they can start it.

However, it's completely useless if there's a flatbed involved.

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If you're close enough to hear your alarm go off, a pager is useless.
A pager can't tell you if it's only a false alarm.


Thing is, the pager tells you that it's actually your car making all that racket.
Some of the nice ones will also tell you WHY your car is making all that racket.

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If they're at all skilled, they can start your car without the help of the ignition, and if they want your car badly enough, they'll just tow it onto a flatbed and haul it off.


An alarm can be wired into more than just your ignition. IMO, any alarm that can be, should be wired into more than just your ignition.

My grandfather had a friend that would hook a dynamo up to his car. Shock the hell out of unsuspecting thiefs.

I've always meant to ask him how his friend disabled it. Probably a hidden switch.

Or we could go South African style and hook it up with some flamethrowers.

i have to agree with you jim, i was going to say almost everything you said. its just that im really late for this discussion, haha. my dad just got a new car and he didnt get an alarm for the same reasons, its pointless. especially comming from nyc, you hear an alarm every other minute mid-day. even at night you'd hear an alarm every now and then. could be from an asshole trying to steal your car or it could be from an asshole sitting/kicking/whatever with your car, or even a car with a loud exhaust, a truck, whatever.

use a club and something to lock the shifter or whatever.

oh hey what about lowjack? i havent herd about lowjack in years

LO JACK is still around and it's pretty effective. It's more of a recovery system though if you want to get technical. :D