To track, or not to track...

A former work colleague had a car lifted (bona fide looking 'local authority' flat bed, witnessed by hotel doorman) in London never to be seen again.....

That happened to me as well.

Trackers depend on the Police responding to the signal (with a suitably equiped car). I hardly ever see Police, in or out of cars, so I wouldn't buy one.

Are there not devices you can fit youself that will text your mobile if your cars moves?

Here you go:

Will your insurance give you a discount? If so, how long will it take to recoup the outlay on the tracker?

Looking at the price of the subs, I'd say you'll never get the money back, at least not in the form of insurance discounts.

If your car does disappear, never to be seen again, the insurance will pay out anyway, assuming you have at least TPFT cover.

Unless your insurance company insist on you having one, I wouldn't bother.

HVB

Well, from the quotes I ran (and I picked a generic tracker) it gives me a grand total of =A340 a year off - so you're right, it doesn't offset the cost.

more interested in the total loss thing, a I've not bothered with gap insurance (never do!)

Spookydel ( snipped-for-privacy@googlemail.com) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

There's your answer.

Let's put it this way... If it gets nicked, do you actually WANT it back once the scrotes have been hoofing it about?

If it's brand new, as your comment about gap insurance implies, then any half decent policy will replace with new if it's a total loss in the first year. After that, they should put you in a position to be able to replace like-with-like. Why SHOULD you get a brand new car to replace an 18mo old one?

It's not brand new - it's about 12 months old - but there's still a depreciation issue there...although not as high as there would have been if it was new.

I'm definately erring on the side of not bothering - unless someone has a bloomin good case for one :-)

A friend had one fitted and was able to set up zones in which it would be kept at certain times of day- the company rang him if it strayed from them, like when the garage doing the servicing took it for a spin at loony speeds while it was in for an oil change. Yet another reason why i wouldnt hand mycar to anyone to repair, but also a small reason to have it, though im not sure thats applicable to all systems - he did pay a lot for it.

We had a mini nicked when they were brand new and that was fitted with a tracker, phoned the police and tracker and the police told us there was one car with the equipment to find it covering the best part of half the county. Just driving round the "rough" areas locally we found the car before the police.