Beware putting a tracker in your car

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Jamie McKane

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Beware putting a tracker in your car

If you have a tracking unit in your car and it negatively affects the electronics of the vehicle, you may have to fork out to cover the repairs yourself.

This is what happened to a MyBroadband reader recently, after it was discovered that his tracking unit was rapidly draining his car's battery.
 
Jamie McKane said:
Beware putting a tracker in your car

If you have a tracking unit in your car and it negatively affects the electronics of the vehicle, you may have to fork out to cover the repairs yourself.

This is what happened to a MyBroadband reader recently, after it was discovered that his tracking unit was rapidly draining his car's battery.
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Thats why they like to say they sell you the service which is abstract, and the unit which is physical and make the service possible , and you become the owner and is therefore responsible for the unit.
They forget, the physical unit has software/firmware in it making it work, which is surely not licenced to you.

I had two units installed, the tech told me no testing for these, the company does it. After 3 years and more than R3000.00 down the toilet we found out it never worked, they never tested it, they never notified me to test it, and could not prove to me it actually works, They refused to removed the units from my vehicles, I found the one and disconnect it. To hell with tracking.
 
Batteries count as consumables which is why they aren't covered under repairs. You also don't let them talk you into a full diagnostic when you know the most likely culprit.
 
This is not the first problem I have read regarding tracking units draining batteries rapidly, that said ideally you wouldn't leave your car for a week and not start it.

Another recent problem I discovered was with my mom's tracker (from tracker), all the new ones use an app to activate , her app is so buggy that she has to open it , arm the tracker, close the app open it again , select arm again , redo it several times till she gets the sms that it's activated , I have tried everything on her phone (hauwei P20 lite) to get the app to work but it's just useless, how this all passed QA nobody knows my thoughts are they tried it on a Samsung galaxy flagship phone once and called it day :/

Anyhow my car has a cheap Chinese tracker I got from AliExpress , I tested it's pull and it's about 150-250ma never gave me a problem, no idea what tracker and the other companies are using ...
 
I don't get why you would voluntarily want a tracking device in your car. If your car gets stolen you really don't want to get it back after it's been ransacked and violated and who knows what else done to it. It will never be the same again so rather not make it any easier to get it back.

There are plenty of insurance companies that don't require a tracking device and in many cases the monthly contract fee for a tracker is more than the extra premium you pay for not having a tracking device anyway.
 
Also, beware they they don't track your vehicle if it crosses the border.
 
car would start in the morning when he left for work before 07:00, but returning to the car at around 10:00 would see it fail to start.
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:unsure:
 
Most likely a poorly installed or a faulty unit, those units should go into sleep mode when the car is turned off, if it can't read the ignition it will stay on and keep using battery.

Also the article describes normal battery behavior, car batteries won't last long after a few discharges, so not finding the drain will cause the battery to worsen until it can't keep any charge
 
deweyzeph said:
I don't get why you would voluntarily want a tracking device in your car. If your car gets stolen you really don't want to get it back after it's been ransacked and violated and who knows what else done to it. It will never be the same again so rather not make it any easier to get it back.

There are plenty of insurance companies that don't require a tracking device and in many cases the monthly contract fee for a tracker is more than the extra premium you pay for not having a tracking device anyway.
Click to expand...
This is the issue we had. No insurance really wanted to give a discount. Also not surprising considering success rates aren't really that great.
 
The chances are that if they stole your car you might not want it back. If the thieves did not damage it, the police most likely will. Friends car was stolen, trackers took photos before the police took the car in, police ripped open all the seats and internal panels and damaged most of the interior of the car. Pathetic. Gave it back just like that.
 
Well I can relate to the battery issue. My previous car had a unit installed at the time of purchase as it was required by my insurance. After about 5 years I had it deactivated. About a year later the it started draining the battery within a day. I had to replace the battery every couple of months.

At one point my break lights stopped working as well. Problem was traced to the tracker unit's panic button was connected to the cabling.
 
Fortunately my insurance doesn’t require a tracker on any of my vehicles so I stay far away from these devices. The thought of having my location at another’s disposal is discomforting, who knows what data is shared amongst many third parties.
 
deweyzeph said:
I don't get why you would voluntarily want a tracking device in your car. If your car gets stolen you really don't want to get it back
Click to expand...

Toddler in the back seat? Happened to the people staying at my aunts, fortunately they dropped her somewhere. A few months again my aunt's son in law was hijacked at the same spot too.
 
INSURANCE: Beware putting a tracker in your car

The tracking company said the onus was on her to check if the unit was activated / working...

“This could have been so much worse. If her car had been hijacked or stolen, her insurance claim could have been disputed because of the fact that the tracking device on her car was not activated,” said Knowler.
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This is the problem.

The insurance company won't pay if the tracker is not working and tracker is part of your policy.
The onus is on you to check it every 6 months.

Tracker - not worth the risk of a disputed insurance claim.
 
If you own a vehicle, have a brain to understand the intricacies of the technology installed. If you can't do basic things like check if your tracking device is working, then get a bicycle.

Honestly, why anybody would trust a dealership's word on anything is beyond me.
 
deweyzeph said:
I don't get why you would voluntarily want a tracking device in your car. If your car gets stolen you really don't want to get it back after it's been ransacked and violated and who knows what else done to it. It will never be the same again so rather not make it any easier to get it back.

There are plenty of insurance companies that don't require a tracking device and in many cases the monthly contract fee for a tracker is more than the extra premium you pay for not having a tracking device anyway.
Click to expand...
Agreed think these guys sell snake oil mostly. I have not in my immediate circle ever heard of a successful recovery and as stated you most likely dont even want your car back.

It also mostly depends on what car you drive. Honestly if you are driving a Volvo or Subaru for example dont think you hijacking risk is high at all and the insurance companies simply dont require you to put one in.

The battery drain issue I have experienced myself with a Netstar unit that was 7 years old. Just because the subscription has been stopped doesn't mean the device stops pulling power in the car. They wanted R500 for removal of the unit and to be honest it took very little effort to find the device and remove by someone else.
 
I don't want my car back if it is stolen, so won't be installing any tracker. Luckily santam does not require it.
 
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