Tracker: Good ones?

[jig]

Again dont know much about his but hoping to fit a tracker on the S500 when I buy it, hopeful it will help bring the insurance down. I know mercedes have their own and also there are others on the market?

how are good?What are the cost like?Installation and maintainence costs?

Any help/advice much appreciated.

Cheers
Jig

 

[Tan]

I have a tracking device fitted...it a device that you have but never want to use. The thing with them is that you will only find out how good it is when someone nicks ur car.

Check with your insurance company before you fit it though. My car insurance is due next week and the company that have given me the best quote don't give a discount for tracker

 

[Brian WH]

This is the usual one fitted to new Mercedes.

Tracker

I had it fitted to my last three mercedes.

Price List

 

[Shude]

My car insurance is due next week and the company that have given me the best quote don't give a discount for tracker

That was what I found out as well. The discount was about £20 or something, off a premium of £1700. It seems that the insurance company aren't worried about my car being stolen, I don't think it's a risk on a modern mercedes unless you are car-jacked.

 

[simonl]

I found having a Tracker didn't affect my premium - "Oh we'd expect you to have that fitted, sir". Some insurers went one step further and required a tracking device to be fitted.

Also, worth noting that Tracker covers UK, France, and now Spain.

 

[clk270]

Most insurance co. wanted me to fit tracker to my CLK. Wasn't prepared to spend £500 and £100 pa given the places the car is left and that its garaged overnight

Esure don't bother as long as its got an alarm/immobiliser - they were cheaper for me than anyone else, even pretending I had tracker with the opposition.

Just been testing quotes for when my Boxster arrives - Esure want £70pa less for this than my CLK, both without tracker - Tesco (with Tracker) want £300 more pa !!!

 

[Flip]

I have been involved in recovering vehicles and plant through Tracker and would only consider fitting it if it made financial sense - ie reduces insurance costs sufficiently.

This system does not work as well as its maker might like to suggest.

There are far better tracking systems on the market, and although most are more expensive, if actually getting the car back is your priority, look there.

:bannana:

 

[richard]

I had a car stolen last week (Golf v6 4motion), by someone who came to look at it to buy it. I didnt tell him it had RAC Trackstar on it when he asked about alarms. Police got car back after 40 mins - and collected the people from inside the house it was outside. It ended up costing me, about 250 quid (towing fee, broken mirror, and imobiliser recoding since the key wasnt recovered), and then my wife made me sell car to a dealer (which cost about 1-1.5k less then selling privately)

I didnt need to have trackstar/tracker, and I wish I didnt. I would have been better off if it hadnt been recovered :-( Very sad, but true.

Now, I know RAC Trackstar uses a gsm (mobile) data connection to constantly report back the gps location of the vehicle. IE, excellent. I beleive that Tracker Horizon, uses the pager network -

I suspect trackstar will work out of the UK, Tracker certainly wont.

But, you do have to think whether you want the car back .... (as Flip mentions)

 

[simonl]

I suspect trackstar will work out of the UK, Tracker certainly wont.

Tracker's website says they cover france and spain.

 

[Brian WH]

Tracker's website says they cover france and spain.

Yes they do NOW, only a recent add on. :bannana:

 

[richard]

Yes they do NOW, only a recent add on. :bannana:

Ok, I have just (today) found out more RAC Trackstar info. It costs 120 p/annum for the maintance fee, and 50 extra for complete european cover.

I guess Tracker have now done some deal to extend pager cover into Europe. Interestingly, I had one of the first few tracker horizon units on my (long since sold) clk55 - this had a mobile/gsm phone (and a sim) and a GPS device. After about a year, tracker came and replaced the unit (saying new unit was better) - the guy fitting it said that the new unit cost tracker less to run as it didnt need a gsm data subscription, and explained about the pager network stuff. He also told me that the original gsm based units were identical to the higher end fleet management units, and was brought to market in a hurry to compete with Trackstar and others GPS systems whilst they developed a more cost-effective solution

I guess a lot of this info is purposely hidden , but I really dont beleive in security by obscurity - the real theives will know the obscure information.

Richard

 

[Alps]

as already mentioned Tracker is a waste of time if your doing it for the insurance savings, im with Tersco, and considering mines a AMG, not one company asked for a tracker, as long as it had a cat 1 alarm they were happy. anyway i wouldnt want my car back if it had been nicked as they wouldve abused it! but i have to have the tracker RAC Trackstar because of the amount of sound equipment in the car (also cos i get it at a hugely discounted rate)

 

[Sp!ke]

For way way cheaper than that, you can buy your own personal tracker. Using a combination of GPS and cellphone, you can dial up your car and get a real time visual representation of where your car is on Autoroute or equivalent.

Bloody handy when you want to know how long its gonna be before the wife gets home

About half way down the page on this link http://www.directions.ltd.uk/products.php

 

[jaymanek]

never seen that before! Not bad! have you got one then? Do you need to buy the software aswell?