Lojack vehicle gps tracking?

[3000gtsohc]

Hello,

I have a hot rod type car with a lot of money invested into it with sentimental value. I'm paranoid that someone is going to steal it. I have a battery cut off switch but if a thief is determined enough they can get around it. The lojack system is a gps tracking system hidden in the car that police can use to recover a vehicle. Apparantly it has over a 90% success rate at recovering stolen cars. I just want to get some thoughts on it before spending a lot of money on one. The website states that lojack is only used in Kane, Will, Cook, Dupage, Mchenry, and Lake counties which wouldn't do me any good if say I go to Kankakee.
Thanks!

[scotty_appleton814]

Keep your car locked and secured as often as possible. Invest in security features that YOU research and are comfortable with. Nothing in life is absolute except for death and taxes. Not even precious lojack, locked cars, and battery cut off switches. Even car operating systems are being hacked. Mine is hacked right now, someone enjoys turning the dial on my Sirius XM to country music. Do your own homework, spend your own money, live you own life ok.

[L-1]

Don't put that much faith in lojack.

One morning at about 2 AM I was sitting at a corner in the downtown area of another jurisdiction when I heard a broadcast on the scanner. A patrol car from the local PD said he was catching up a stolen lojak vehicle that was northbound heading towards me, approximately five blocks south of my location. I looked down the street and could see no vehicles whatsoever for miles. He kept broadcasting the stolen vehicle's moving location as it appeared on his lojack device, but there were no vehicles on the street, eventually the local pd unit blew past me and continued north. In the process, he drew half a police division with him, looking for a stolen vehicle that wasn't there. While they were searching, another unit got a hit on the same lojak vehicle five miles to the south.

Several years later we got lojak installed in a couple of our units and a lojak salesman came out to give us a demonstration. He parked one of his vehicles with a transmitter in our station parking lot and tuned it on to simulate a stolen vehicle. Another lieutenant and I then took a newly equipped patrol car out to see how lojak worked. We drover around for about 30 minutes. During that time the little arrow on the lojak device sometimes pointed us towards the station. At other times the signal pointed us the opposite direction and sometimes it spun in a circle. All it was. was a directional finder that wasn't that directional when the signal bounced off buildings or objects. It never gave us gps coordinates.

There are systems out there you can buy that have GPS, some you can check with your own computer. Do your research carefully before you invest your money.

[TUNEDNIMPORTED]

Drive stick shift. Apparently it can prevent it from being stolen.

[ChiTownDet]

LoJack was big on the east coast, they did have some cars on CPD equipped with the locators, but that kind of petered out some years ago. I'll bet you won't find it in any cars, except pool cars now. I also haven't seen it in any suburban cars as of late.
I think onstar works much better. Heard on ISPERN a few months ago, ISP on a car jacked car on I-290. Onstar flashed the lights on the hot car. ISP verified they saw it and onstar brought the car to a halt, disabled it, right on the exway. 2 bad guys and weapons in custody.

[TUNEDNIMPORTED]

Another good thing you can do is etch the vin in spots and its actually recommended by l.e and insurance. Call up your local whomever and see if they have any events or can send someone down to you to advise. Since you have a hot rod I would recommend that. I'm in similar situation.

[not.in.MY.town]

Another good thing you can do is etch the vin in spots and its actually recommended by l.e and insurance. Call up your local whomever and see if they have any events or can send someone down to you to advise. Since you have a hot rod I would recommend that. I'm in similar situation.

That's helpful in identifying a stolen vehicle. It won't help locate a stolen vehicle...which appears to be the OP's main concern.

[TUNEDNIMPORTED]

That's helpful in identifying a stolen vehicle. It won't help locate a stolen vehicle...which appears to be the OP's main concern.

Totally agree. Imo good preventative stuff is a great start though. I wonder what kinda hot rod op is building.

[scotty_appleton814]

Maybe a 3000 GT, with some sohc under the hood......

[Curt5811]

I think onstar works much better. Heard on ISPERN a few months ago, ISP on a car jacked car on I-290. Onstar flashed the lights on the hot car. ISP verified they saw it and onstar brought the car to a halt, disabled it, right on the exway. 2 bad guys and weapons in custody.

OnStar is the shizznit. The only hitch is getting OnStar headquarters to cooperate. My experience is that they demand the owner report the vehicle stolen to the police, and the police enter it as stolen into the system and generate a report before they will make a few mouse clicks. Time consuming stuff when trying to resolve an incident in progress. Once you dot all their I's and cross all their T's, it works beautifully. A crying shame that they won't use their powers to terminate a pursuit.

[TUNEDNIMPORTED]

Thread is really making me think about keeping my project safe. Then again unless they plan on pushing it away I think it'll be ok for now.