GPS Tracking of motor vehicle

[Brian500au]

Hi All

Having just moved back to Australia i have just purchased a new vehicle.

In the past having had an expensive motorcycle stolen and never recovered, I have been investigating the option of attaching a small GPS tracker to my new vehicle. It seems there a few standard units available with the option of a standard plug and play unit that plugs into the diagnostic outlet of most modern day vehicles. I see the downside of this plug and play unit in the fact the plugs are just under the steering column and probably be the first place a thief would look to find one.

Other units are hardwired to the vehicle in more discrete places. The cost of monitoring the device range from the cost of a sim card which you pay data charges on to a fully monitored system which is tracked via software on the web via a PC, tablet or smart phone. These costs are reasonable at around $20 per month with includes the data charges.

There are a multitude of companies out there offering this service. Has anybody had any experience with this type of GPS tracking and could make any recommendations?

I could even see the opportunity of sowing one of these small devices into my camera bag so it ever got lifted at least I would be able to track the bag (and hopefully the contents are still inside). How hard would it be to have the camera GPS tracked via software?

This seems to be the way of the future and I am surprised more insurance companies are not encouraging it with discounted monitoring plans in their insurance contracts.

[John King]

Gidday Brian

IIRC, Find Me Spot make just such a hard-wired, hidden device that has a tracker and also allows the vehicle to be remotely disabled. Primarily sold for fleet management purposes.

I personally have a Spot Messenger 3, which is a portable tracker and EPIRB.

Hope this helps.

[Hamster]

There are a variety of devices out there, from DIY to purpose built. If it's another motorbike you're talking about then I guess you have to ask yourself if you want it back as its usually thrashed and dropped. There'll be a few threads on trackers on perthstreetbikes.com.
I'm guessing that insurance companies don't push it because often they've already paid out and recover little from the thieves. Easier just to put the premium up. Exception is maybe high end exotics.

[ricktas]

even www.jaycar.com.au offer GPS tracking systems at very reasonable prices these days. Though the concern of the Police is that people will use them to track ex-partners etc. Certainly to track your own car/stuff they are boon, but sadly they also have a dark side, when used by the unscrupulous.

[Brian500au]

I have been researching for a few days now.

I believe the JayCar tracker is only 2G which will become obsolete in a couple of months.

I have also researched DIY but the problem is the cost of a cheap sim card plan.

I have narrowed it down to two companies that sell the hardware for around $350 - $400 (including the first 12 months monitoring fees). The second year of monitoring fees are around $10 per device per month which is cheaper than a cheap sim card plan. This cost is almost recovered with a discount on my car insurance. One of he devices will immobilize the vehicle. I have researched the statistics and although it is rare for a late model vehicle to be stolen without keys, it is the first thing thieves look for when doing a house break in. In fact a work mate had his car stolen in that exact fashion (keys found in a house break in and car stolen from driveway).

When my Ducati 748 was stolen it was locked up outside of my work (in full view of a window). A van pulled up and they lifted the bike in the back all within a minute. It was never recovered and police later told me it was the sixth bike stolen in the area that day. The insurance after that was a nightmare. The forfeited the remaining balance of the premium, I had to pay the excess and they made up their own market price of the bike (not taking into account new tyres and a recent $1000 service). The insurance company refused to insure my new bike if I was leaving it parked in the same suburb (where i worked). If i had had a GPS attached to the bike I would have been alerted (via a Geofence) the bike was moving and I could have alerted the police immediately (or given chase myself). At the very least I could have told the police where the bike was at any given moment.

I can see the unscrupulous side of a GPS tracking device but I think the day will come when these become standard in vehicles (as they are in phones today).

[Hamster]

If you think the police are going to leap in a car and give chase you clearly don't live in Perth . If you're going to go all Bodie and Doyle on them yourself I suggest you take some large friends.
But if a decrease in premium will cover it, what have you got to lose.
As you say, stealing the keys is the preferred method. Thieves often sneak into an occupied house to do this, and like nothing better than a key rack by the front door.

[Brian500au]

If you think the police are going to leap in a car and give chase you clearly don't live in Perth . If you're going to go all Bodie and Doyle on them yourself I suggest you take some large friends.
But if a decrease in premium will cover it, what have you got to lose.
As you say, stealing the keys is the preferred method. Thieves often sneak into an occupied house to do this, and like nothing better than a key rack by the front door.

Interesting you note Perth. This trial was conducted in Perth back in 2014 / 2015. No idea of the result

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-0...-theft/5949932

I do agree though - if you notice your car was missing and the police do not jump to attention to help whilst the thief is driving the vehicle, what is your next move? I suppose the alternative to all this is never leave you keys lying around your house for thieves to steal.

[Hamster]

Interesting you note Perth. This trial was conducted in Perth back in 2014 / 2015. No idea of the result

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-0...-theft/5949932

I do agree though - if you notice your car was missing and the police do not jump to attention to help whilst the thief is driving the vehicle, what is your next move? I suppose the alternative to all this is never leave you keys lying around your house for thieves to steal.

Yes, the Perth trial came up on the motorbike forum. With plenty of people noting that it allowed your speed to be tracked also. Cue jokes of automated infringement notices winging their way through the mail.

Keys are definitely worth hiding IMHO. It's a low risk strategy to have a quick 30 second dash around a house to grab keys so you can come back later and steal a car at your leisure.
Bikes - if someone wants it you're doomed. Best you can do (as with most property) is try to move them on to an easier target. GPS trackers don't prevent and the police haven't got the resources to bother with vehicle or property theft.
Having said that, there would definitely be satisfaction in someone getting nicked due to a tracker, even if the vehicle was not worth recovering. So worth it on the off chance.

[arthurking83]

I personally think that the reality of true GPS tracking vehicles in this manner nowadays is going to be of limited value.
Reason: most thieves know of GPS tracking in vehicles now and will be prepared for them, especially expensive vehicles(I'm think most likely imported expensive type in this situation).

It's not hard for thieves to take the vehicle to a place that will interfere with the GPS signalling system in some way, locate it or minimise it's ability strip the car or do whatever it is they do and you're still in the same situation as before.

If it's an expensive car, then the likelyhood is that it will have a decent enough security system to minimise joy riding type theft .. so the most obvious plan would be to concentrate on minimizing the possibility of the vehicle succumbing to the organised car theft system!

It's not hard to render the GPS system pretty much useless in quick time.
And geo locating via the phone network isn't accurate enough to pinpoint the device.

Therefore the only real advantage is that it may help with the insurance premium, and by the sounds of it to help get insurance in some situations.

The reality of GPS tracking your camera is pretty much non existent.

[Mark L]

^ written with such authority.
AK now goes onto the Police radar.
Don't get paranoid but they might be watching you now.

[arthurking83]

...
Don't get paranoid but they might be watching you now.

My only possible response to that is: if someone not so bright like me knows how to easily fool a GPS, I'm betting the crooks have far greater knowledge or employed someone that's smarter again(or even just half smart) who knows more about it all.

Imagine a world where the crooks used all their evil genius knowledge and capabilities to solve world issues rather than confound the authorities.

[Cage]

The other alternative is to get a vehicle that nobody would bother pinching.

There's quite a a few British vehicles that fit that category.

[ameerat42]

...a vehicle that nobody would bother pinching...

WTT!!?? - And have yer car pinched by a nobody?

(Sorry, officer. I saw nobody)

[jim]

If Arthur's discouraging post hasn't sufficiently discouraged you, you might give this a go:


http://www.techonthego.co.uk/2014/02...d-iphone-15955

[Brian500au]

Yes, the Perth trial came up on the motorbike forum. With plenty of people noting that it allowed your speed to be tracked also. Cue jokes of automated infringement notices winging their way through the mail.

Plenty to think about. Interesting enough the vehicle I just purchased has a "black box" that can be read in cases of accident investigation. It can measure speed, brake pressure, steering wheel direction etc.

- - - Updated - - -

I personally think that the reality of true GPS tracking vehicles in this manner nowadays is going to be of limited value.
Reason: most thieves know of GPS tracking in vehicles now and will be prepared for them, especially expensive vehicles(I'm think most likely imported expensive type in this situation).

I am not sure I agree with you there Arthur. I don't think "most" car thieves are prepared for GPS tracking. Today most car thefts are opportunistic - stealing keys. It is almost impossible to start a late model vehicle without the keys. The other alternative is to simply tow the vehicle away - in this case it is not joy riding but using the vehicle for spare parts.

I would think the average car thief would no idea the vehicle had a GPS tracker attached. They are easily hidden and can also be used to immobilize the vehicle remotely. They are not indistinguishable from any other black box in the vehicle. Professional thieves would come prepared with a some type of device to check and disarm, but these types of thefts are such a small percentage of the car thefts in Australia.

Car theft in Australia is a staggering number - from March 2015 to March 2016 there were over 42,000 cars stolen in Australia. 32,000 of these were short term and 10,000 were profit motivated. Victoria has the highest rate of car theft in Australia.

[John King]

Brian, yet another deterrent is microdot technology. Our Subarus both have these sprayed all over the vehicles, making it extremely difficult to hide where even individual parts originated. It is my understanding that police cars have the necessary detection gear to read these.

As you have said, it is very difficult to steal a modern car successfully.

Further to this, our keys are never left lying about ... Priced an immobiliser/remote key lately? Ugh!

[Hamster]

Plenty to think about. Interesting enough the vehicle I just purchased has a "black box" that can be read in cases of accident investigation. It can measure speed, brake pressure, steering wheel direction etc.

There's pros and cons for that. Very handy in the "he was speeding" accusation that people trot out when they've failed to see you. Not so great when speed isn't a factor in the cause of an accident and yet is cited as such. The kind of thing that you should keep very quiet about until you're sure that it will help your case.

Victoria has the highest rate of car theft in Australia.

WA has the highest motorbike theft rate (and probably the biggest meth problem :-(). Yay for WA!

[arthurking83]

..... I don't think "most" car thieves are prepared for GPS tracking. Today most car thefts are opportunistic - stealing keys. ....

I'm not in the auto theft game, so I'm not up to speed with what the current gen are up too, and so forth.

About 20-ish+ years ago, we owned one of the early (VQ, model I think) Statesmans which was a magnet to many thieving swines!
Car was never recovered, and idiot sister who was making use of the car at the time didn't pay the insurance, so of course a complete and total loss!
The sad side of that was that she was living in St Kilda at the time! .. which is almost an open invitation to the thieves.
Anyhow, police people reckon it was an organised mob and the car was already stripped and sold off as parts most likely.

At about the same time, my other sister was owned a crappy XD falcon of much older origin, and more basic than a base model!
But again, they are so easy to break into and drive away, it was stolen by a different type of thieving swine, that took it out into the paddocks and just did burnouts for the night .. and just dumped it there.
Cops found it a few hours later(basically first thing in the morning).

I've owned basic old bombs all my driving life, and only once had to lodge a claim when some other swine broke into one of them and stole the radio(a not so particularly great radio either! )
Car never stolen, that I know of, never even tried.
Most of them had a home made isolation switch of some variation to confound anyone trying to drive off with it .. usually a switch to kill ignition, and on my Range Rover I made up an isolation switch from the battery to the starter.

I'm sure I read of heard of a new item not that long ago where there was a supposed rise in car theft of luxurious models for the purpose of exporting them to some overseas destinations .. or something like that

[Cage]

WTT!!?? - And have yer car pinched by a nobody?

(Sorry, officer. I saw nobody)

Am, think about it. What self respecting car thief from the West is going to nick something like, say, a Range Rover , and rock up to the local drags where the ride of choice will be a stolen BMW or Subaru WRX.

It's a numbers game. Only a down on his/her luck yuppie from the North Shore would even give it a second glance.

[arthurking83]

..... and rock up to the local drags where the ride of choice will be a stolen BMW or Subaru WRX.

....

I guess the other way to look at it is that a Range Rover(or in my situation now .. a Discovery) is an alternative to a WRX!
.. and that the mission isn't the drags as such but the Summernats, and producing tyre smoke for the 'Burnout of the Year' award is their goal.

Beemers may be great for the strip, but 4 tyres producing smoke is better than just the two!

So my (hypothetical)concern would be to be careful in the summer moths!
.... of course that would only apply if I had a V8 tho, and as I have a slug of a diesel, my mind is restful.

As it says in the bible .. 'blessed are the unloved crappy old, smelly, loud, rattly, sluggard vehicles'