Gary

Anyone, have thoughts or experience with Lojack
My Black with Oyster leather C230KMT,C1,C4,C5,C7,CD arrives next month, the insurance company said they would knock off a whopping $14 a year if I had Lojack installed,
Gee -I'd only have to keep the car about 42 and a half years to recoup the cost! Thoughts please, positive or negative. Thanks

greg230

had lo jack on my gsr, then again my gsr was one of the most commonly stolen cars, and had a ****ty dealer installed antitheft system.

most mercedes have a pretty full set of anti theft features, however if you opt for teleaid, you ahve essentially the same functionality of lo jack (or so mercedes claims).

i would resist the urge to get it, and instead opt for teleaid... yea teleaid sucks, but at least it can remotely unlock your doors, and locate your car like lo jack

greg

tomqbui

Isn't there a yearly subscription fee for TeleAid? LoJack has a one-time installation fee (albeit, not that cheap), but you may pay more to have it checked after the warranty runs our, or extend the warranty, etc.

tommy

And most people, it seems, don't re-up after the first year. I myself was thinking of LoJack, as I live in Jersey. It can give you a little piece of mind.

What was the price that you were quoted?

Gary

$595 doesn't seem too bad, but if the insurance company doesn't think that much of it(at least in terms of reducing policy amount) why bother?

tommy

You're not looking for equity from your insurance company, are you?

Gary

No, not really looking for equity from them, my point is that if Lojack is so great wouldn't it save the insurance companies a boat load of money in the long run and would therefore behoof them encouraging the use of lojack

greg230

lo jack works, but your putting it on a car that is not very commonly stolen. Here in philly there is an occasional mb or bmw theft. Usually someone loads it on a tow truck, and drives it away alarm blaring.

however a civic or accord is stolen every minute and a half in philly and a lo jck equipped civic will get a bigger discount then a lojack equipped mercedes.

greg

Mach430

If the antenna on the car has been tampered with, or the battery is disconnected, the Teleaid service will not be able to locate the car. On the otherhand, Lojack does not depend on the car's battery for reliablity. Lojack is installed in different places on each car, and supposedly is hard to find. Personally, I think its only plus is that it works even if Teleaid doesn't. As for being located in different places, I'm sure professional thieves wouldn't have a problem removing it.

eddie

The old lojack system relied upon having police cars that had a special lojack reciver system installed... you can see if a policecar has it because it will have 4 antennas drilled in the roof, about 8 inches apart arranged like a square. If there was no police car around that has these antennas, there was no way they could find your car.

Now they are using GPS which is much better, but still not close to perfect. Anyway, I would never put Lojack in a car, it is not worth the expense unless you have a car which is stolen frequently or if your insurance will give you a more substantial discount.

awiner

Call you local Police Dept.'s and ask them if they have vehicles and air units (If applicable) that are LoJack equipped. If they say yes, ask then how many percent of their fleet is equipped. If you are in area that has none or few LoJack equipped police units, then LoJack may not be the right system for your particular case.

I am a former LAPD officer (Don’t tell anyone though) and have recovered many stolen vehicles via LoJack activations. The LoJack system works well when, AND ONLY WHEN you as the owner report your vehicle stolen quickly after the initial theft. If you don't report the theft until hours later, sadly enough, the recovery rates decline quickly. Some cars are stolen and moved to a chop shop relatively quick. Then dismantled and sold.

greg230

knowing my luck, i would be at work when my car was stolen, and i wouldnt learn about it for 7 or 8 hours

greg

awiner

That is the problem Greg. LoJack is a great system if you discover your vehicle has been stolen shortly after it has been taken. The longer it takes to notify the police, the longer it takes for the LoJack module to be activated.

Again, the police in your area don't even have LoJack receivers, well then the point is mute.

Rick

When I lived in a human habitrail (condo complex) in central NJ, a woman discovered her LoJack equipped Prelude was stolen. In the parking space was the LoJacj box with all the wiring that had been ripped out from under that dash, her "The Club" device cut in two, and a lot of broken glass from the window.

Teleaid saved me $26 per year in addition to the $40 for having an alarm in the car...whether it works or not has yet to be seen.

Gary

Thanks all for the comments, looks like that is one option not going in my car, then again that is half the price of the wettereur (sp?) pulley /chip set so I'll take the extra horsepower!

Vic55

I have had both and luckily never needed their services. What I can tell you is that if you present to your insurance company the info on TeleAid (Vehicle tracking) then they should give you the same discount as LoJack. My insurance company is Mercury and they of course recognize LoJack but they also give the same discount for Onstar (GM) so I just showed them that TeleAid is the same as Onstar and they agreed. In regards to LoJack it only works with equipped police cars and the system is not used in every state by every car. When I got my LoJack way back in 1995 it was only used in 5 states. I am not sure now but you can check their website.

http://www.lojack.com/index.htm

Randy B

I can tell you this much. Lojack will help get your vehicle back. Most times within hours, and most times with somebody for you to point your anger at (ie:Car thief). The sole idea is to get the car back with your belongings in it, beofre they get lost and or pawned. The latest and greatest Lojacks now have what is called confirmation type Lojack. You have a mini type fob on your key chain. And if you car is started and moving without the fob being within 1 mile of the car, the Lojack send out a signal and a phone call is placed to whatever number you have provided and or squence of numbers to confirm if someone else has the car. If not, you report the car stolen right then. Kind of neat, almost like an early warning device. There is an annual service charge for that new service from Lojack. As far as the older, traditional Lojack, no annual service fees at all. Once it is installed that's it. Remember this though. The Lojack is only actiavted after you report the car stolen to the loacl police. Nice thing is, it does not matter if you are from Florida, and have it stolen in Iowa while on vacation. It's all automatic through the NCIC computer system via the FBI in Washington D.C. I have had a tracking unit for five years now, and have personally racked up over fifty recoveries. The guys in the bigger cities with autotheft obviously do better. At least ten of these have been from out of state hits, where the car was stolen from a northern State and caught down here. Pretty funny when you track one and box one in with unmarked trucks, and they have no clue what's going on.

vinmanc32

Many insurance companies look at it as a similiar type of safety measure as Lo Jack and give you discounts because of it. I will keep it since it saves me about 100 per year and for the additional 140 I like the peace of mind. I am not a big fan of it but for my particular reasons, it works for me. I have a cell phone and plan on enabling the phone option in the car some time in the near future for additional safety.