Fighting back against car thiefs

Waaaay too many stolen car threads here on the HAMB as of late, and with the economy in the crapper, it's only going to get worse.

I've shared my method of protecting my pride and joy here a couple times before, but I'd like to get it out there in a thread of it's own so that maybe others can benefit from my low cost fool proof method of tracking my car via GPS in real time for about .33 cents per day.

All cell phones sold today are GPS capable. Even the el-cheapo Tracphone sold at wal-mart has the feature.

If you have a contract with a big name carrier, you usually have the option of more than one phone on your contract.

My carrier [sprint] has me set up with two lines. The first is my expensive smart phone. The second is the $29 special... Here's how I did it.

On my $29 phone, I got what they called an emergency plan. It's $10 a month and it gives me 100 minutes, but I never use any of them.

I bought a car charger for it, and an add on cigarette lighter/12V plug at wal-mart. Then I installed the 12V outlet under the dash, pluged in the charger, and pluget that into the phone.

The phone is then secured behind the speaker cover on top of the dash. I activated the GPS program on the phone... Actually two of them. One is called Latitude, the other was over the internet and it's thru Google, called tracker. It sent a text message to the phone asking for permission to track it via GPS. Of course I gave permssion.

So there you have it. For .33 cents a day, I have a real time GPS tracking system in my car. Lojack systems range from $500 to $1000, and you have no control over them, only the police can activate the tracker.

Every few weeks I open the speaker cover and check the phone. It's been there for almost two years, and no issues.

I have no first hand knowledge, but I'd be willing to bet that the tracphones wal-mart sells can do the same thing... You could even install a "jupiter jack" on the phone, and set it to auto-answer, along with turning the ringer off. This would give you the ability to listen in on any conversations going on inside the car without anyone knowing.

Fortunately, I've never had my ride borrowed without my permission, but I did bust a cheating girlfriend with it, and I know where my kids are when they use the car.

Lots of places under the dash to hide it as well.

I hope this helps someone out there. Anybody else got any cool low-buck protection devices they feel like sharing with us?

 

Oh, one final note... If you ever do locate a stolen vehicle, yours or someone elses,,, dont be a hero, call the boys in blue to do the actual recovery.

 

Genius!

 

Low buck...high tech...love it!

 

"Fortunately, I've never had my ride borrowed without my permission, but I did bust a cheating girlfriend with it, and I know where my kids are when they use the car"

..so you have tried it out, I am guessing, how easy was it to find, and can you track it real time in motion too?

also how long does the batt last if the car batt is disconnected?

 

sweet, thanks for that
will be putting this to good use once mine is on the road.

 

But I Like the hero part of getting my stuff back.

Pretty good idea for sure. I can't imagine anyone wanting anything that I would own or drive but its still a pretty slick idea.

 

With respect, the boys in blue just put them in jail for a few weeks, until some judge lets them out. And they don't even cut any pieces off.

 

What a great idea!

 

i seen this just recently on one of the tv shows i think 2 guys . if its stolen you can call the police and give them the cell # and they can trac it too. but it is easier if its in auto answer mode. silent ring of course. and remember not to have it on vibrate as it would possibly give it away.

 

Great idea, I wanted to do something similar a couple of years ago, but my car has so rarely been in a situation where it could leave my possession that I didn't think it was worth it.

She'll be on more road trips this year so it may be time to get on this one.

 

Good idea

 

Clever.
Thanks.

I think the major car board owner/admins should get consider creating a kind of amber alert that crosses hobby. There are boards out there even more active than the HAMB, with as much worldwide participation or more, all sharing allegiance to their part of the car craft.

Some of these HAMB cars are just as likely, if not more likely, to be spotted by folks like the Porsche or BMW enthusiasts on rennlist or Pelicanparts, same with other marques and their boards.

 

good idea. i just pull the hearse up against mine.

 

That doesn't always work, if they want the car they'll move the hearse.... Ask Chris Casny about his T bird!!!

 

It's a great idea but where I live you don't always have cell phone reception.

 

great idea!

 

Thanks for sharing!! Very good info!!

 

Great forum
Great people
Great ideas
Great example of above with this post.
Thanks for posting!!

 

you know what might work better than that, dewalt has a gps system for tool boxes.
check it out. im sticking with lojack and may be one of these?
<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/6qWafUyd9Js?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/6qWafUyd9Js?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>

 

great idea Big Creep
http://dewaltmobilelock.com/main.asp

wonder what the costs are to run this set up VS the phone deal?

this sounds like it needs to be charged up periodically?

any one using this device ? even if not on your car on equipment?

 

Wow, this whole computer/internet deal is really catching on...who knew?
Book'em Dano

 

Thanks!! Sounds like a really excellent idea - I don't really like the Lojack system on our '57 because I can't tell if it's still working or not and it doesn't have any Internet Tracking system to verify where the car is. Thanks again for Posting!!

 

cool ideas

 

All of my vehicles have manual transmissions. Around here, this seems to stop car thieves and carjackers cold in their tracks.

 

And if you cut pices off them, YOU spend more than two weeks in jail and come out with boobs tattoed on your back.

Don't mess up a good thread by being an internet tough guy.

 

look into fleet style tracking systems .it cost me about 4250 for the transmitter and $25 a month. yo can have it send a text message whenever the car is started or whenever it leaves a certain area . you can track it 24/7 for about the same price. years ago i had a system when they first came out and an employee stole my truck. i called the tracking company as back then there were no internet cell phones and it was like a scene out of the movies dispatcher said he made a right ,make a left he just hung a 180 go straight etc., we finally caught him ,he jumped out and ran ,called the police and had to wait 3 hrs for a squad car to come and check out the truck before we got in

 

This is a great idea and I would love to use it, however in my case there is one major draw back. I am real old school meaning that I build and run old school rods specific to an era right down to the six volt electrical system. Does anyone have a way around this problem because as it stands I can not incorporate this technology into one of my cars?

 

All great Ideas but the most important is not to make it easy for a theif.

All this talk of keeping things traditional and such its no wonder there are so many cars stolen. I saw a thread the other day talking about not using electric door poppers on shaved doors because it's not traditional.. So instead they would have some mechanical means of popping the door from the outside of the car WTF? If a thief sees you do that you're done. They'll get in quitely and easily and once they're inside they'll have no problem with your traditional wiring, column and ign switch either. Dont get me wrong you're not gonna stop a thief. IF they want in they're gonna get in but hell don't make their job easy..

 

Do you have to have a full data plan activated on your cell phone account? My AT&T phone has a GPS option but it says in order activate it, it's $10/month additional. Does the phone just have to be GPS compatible or actually have the GPS enabled for use?