9unk wrote:... Gonna have a think if I want an alarm or just keyless entry. Still in two minds about it. I have had the car broken into once as I park it on the street. They didn't get away with anything but I would like to catch the next dickhead who tries.
I was installing car alarms abroad for years making living long time ago.
Started that business for friends and friends of friends after my Carina was broken into and I was 3 meter away behind the brick wall - did not hear a thing.
Bulglars were unable to open the trunk (where I kept valuable equipment) as I disengaged the flexible wire which is used to open the car boot from inside and they were unable to open boot with a screwdriver.
Since then I've learned that I need to be notified. All my cars ever since (and even here in New Zealand) had radio link straight to my pocket with about 2 km working range. I even did GSM link prototype recently, but I never too far away from my car anyway so pager does the job.
Done many times remote engine start, remote windows roll-ups, remote doors/boot openers, radio paging etc. Now doing it only for my family cars.
May I suggest from my experience:
- any security system is only good if there is a human to react when alarm goes off. For that reason try to get the system with a pager to alert you (e.g. that the tow away truck has just started their job - my real life example - pager saved me tow-away fees in Auckland CBD).
- if you need a door opener only - please look for an alarm with a rolling code, otherwise others could open your car even more easily.
- If your car has built in remote door opener - please make sure you had deleted any possible old remote keys from the vehicle's memory.
....That last phrase just reminded me to add that when moving into the new house it is a good idea to delete garage opener's memory from possible remote keys as they give you a pair but memory can handle more than two keys.