Tracker Care vs Netstar Early Warning

Foxhound5366

Foxhound5366

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I'm planning to get back onto the vehicle tracking bandwagon, and I'd love to know if anyone has personal experiences of Tracker Care or Netstar Early Warning to share? They're both R199/month for a three year contract, and have exactly the same services from what I can see (live tracking, geo-fencing, mobile apps, physical tags, impact detection etc).

When I researched this a few years ago, Netstar and Tracker were the only two tracking services which had their own Stolen Vehicle Recovery teams (and integrations into SAPS).

To be clear, I am NOT looking for the cheapest service to tick an insurance box, or secretly hoping my car will be stolen and not recovered. I know the risk of people ripping up my car trying to find the SVR unit, but that's going to happen regardless whether you actually have one or not.

I actually WANT an effective service which offers rapid response in case of emergency, and at least somewhat resistant to blocking/jamming by hijackers. Any thoughts in 2023?
 
I think if anything, LESS people are interested in specific Tracker devices. I can only think their business is not doing well because they're branching into everything from personal insurance to guarding to lifestyle stuff.

The last 2 vehicles I bought came pre-fitted with units and one just cost a small monthly fee, the other had the service pre-paid for 2 years.

I've only ever used CarTrack and Tracker. Have not had issues with them but also never had to have my vehicle recovered. I would imagine, Tracker is your best option for "I want them to hunt down my stolen car like they're mercenaries hunting weapons in Africa..."
 
neoprema said:
I think if anything, LESS people are interested in specific Tracker devices. I can only think their business is not doing well because they're branching into everything from personal insurance to guarding to lifestyle stuff.

The last 2 vehicles I bought came pre-fitted with units and one just cost a small monthly fee, the other had the service pre-paid for 2 years.

I've only ever used CarTrack and Tracker. Have not had issues with them but also never had to have my vehicle recovered. I would imagine, Tracker is your best option for "I want them to hunt down my stolen car like they're mercenaries hunting weapons in Africa..."
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Dude I dunno if it's just me, but I've actually seen Netstar-branded helicopters in the air, I've never seen a Tracker-branded helicopter. That's purely a personal reaction, but honestly it's not like Netstar or Tracker even advertise how large their fleets ARE (most likely because they're so small that they know we'd all be horrified and never sign up lol).

Imagine selling a vehicle recovery service and not sharing details on what your vehicle recovery success percentage rates, or your response times, are or how well-trained or highly-armed your staff are?

For what it's worth I've had Tracker devices in three of my cars in the past ... all which were Tracker Skytrax units (seems they've now changed the name to Care and added some bells and whistles). Also never had to have a recovery through them, but I can confirm their app was easy to use and the GPS-based locations were always accurate.
 
Foxhound5366 said:
To be clear, I am NOT looking for the cheapest service to tick an insurance box
Click to expand...

Then why not get both?

Soon it will get you an insurance discount ...

Santam demanding certain customers get two trackers for cars at high risk of theft or hijacking

Santam demanding certain customers get two trackers for cars at high risk of theft or hijacking Santam has started demanding that some of its insurance clients with cars often targeted by thieves and hijackers install a second tracking device in their vehicles. MyBroadband became aware of the...
mybroadband.co.za
 
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Foxhound5366 said:
Imagine selling a vehicle recovery service and not sharing details on what your vehicle recovery success percentage rates
Click to expand...

South Africa’s highest audited stolen vehicle recovery rate​

Our advanced fitment techniques give you increased assurance that your vehicle tracking device will not be found or disabled during a theft. This standard allows us to achieve our industry-leading recovery rate.
www.cartrack.co.za

Stolen Vehicle Recovery - Risk Management Compliance

Cartrack's cutting-edge tech & expert teams ensure 24/7 readiness to recover your vehicle swiftly. Your safety is our priority.
www.cartrack.co.za www.cartrack.co.za
 
Family with Matrix and it’s great.

I’ve had Tracker and liked their service.

Netstar currently and just not a fan since they don’t have an app.
 
D said:

South Africa’s highest audited stolen vehicle recovery rate​

Our advanced fitment techniques give you increased assurance that your vehicle tracking device will not be found or disabled during a theft. This standard allows us to achieve our industry-leading recovery rate.
www.cartrack.co.za

Stolen Vehicle Recovery - Risk Management Compliance

Cartrack's cutting-edge tech & expert teams ensure 24/7 readiness to recover your vehicle swiftly. Your safety is our priority.
www.cartrack.co.za www.cartrack.co.za
Click to expand...
“Highest audited” … what is that as a percentage? If the highest is 5% recovery, would that be impressive? Why not disclose it if it’s genuinely good? And who audited it? Sorry, just too many holes there … but it’s a start at least.
 
Yeah I'm with netstar for both vehicles and app works very well.

They also give you that emergency warning button/dongle thing.

Been with them for 5 years, happy with the service...sms and calls actually come through and my car battery has not been affected. Also never had to have them come and fix the unit fitted since day 1.

Obviously not sure about theft recovery but haven't heard anything poor.

Know of people with tracker and cartrack but that's been a hit and miss (may be due to them having toyotas, not sure).
 
DrX said:
Yeah I'm with netstar for both vehicles and app works very well.

They also give you that emergency warning button/dongle thing.

Been with them for 5 years, happy with the service...sms and calls actually come through and my car battery has not been affected. Also never had to have them come and fix the unit fitted since day 1.

Obviously not sure about theft recovery but haven't heard anything poor.

Know of people with tracker and cartrack but that's been a hit and miss (may be due to them having toyotas, not sure).
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How does people having Toyotas make their experience hit and miss?
 
Know of 4 different people : 3 fortuners and 1 hilux.

All the fortuners were with tracker but only 1 of them was recovered (stripped) the other 2 were never recovered. The hilux had issues with cartrack so they had to come out 3 times to check the device or something.

Basically not sure if it's due to high risk vehicles or poor recovery.
 
I had to make the same decision myself recently and ended up going with Netstar.

One thing the Netstar unit has which Tracker doesn’t is jamming protection. If thieves try to jam the tracker’s GSM/GPS signals, the unit switches to using RF signals. They claim it can also detect if there is remote jamming near where you parked and send an SMS warning in that event.

No idea how effective it really is but I figured it would be better to have that fallback than not at all.

Netstar also has a slightly higher recovery rate than Tracker (I think 90% versus 86%) although Tracker has a higher absolute number of recoveries. So I think you can’t really go wrong with either here.
 
Pho3nix said:
Let me qualify this. No app for iOS. It's a crappy WebApp that works half the time.
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It really is just a web wrapper app, but it does the job. You can arm/disarm the unit, check the location, etc. without hassle.

Only thing missing is notifications, but I would want them to phone me if they receive an alert from the unit, not send a notification…
 
In my experience, almost 40yrs in insurance, there are very few recoveries through the tracking system.

Wait till your vehicle gets stolen and you are in for 3yrs of contract that they still insist on collecting for their "service" (they tried this on a friends vehicle but backtracked in court)

If you don't have to don't is my opinion unless you want to manage driving habits etc

Also wait till you have a claim and the insurer secures through their contacts your history and hold it against you.
 
Cartrack can burn in a fire. I cancelled with them when we sold our car and left the country. They've since "lost" my cancellation request and I keep having to dispute debit orders. They refuse to cancel now as I "owe" them.
 
Hemi300c said:
Also wait till you have a claim and the insurer secures through their contacts your history and hold it against you.
Click to expand...
Have you seen this happen recently? I’d think that with POPI that would be inadmissible in court.
 
PsyMon93 said:
I had to make the same decision myself recently and ended up going with Netstar.

One thing the Netstar unit has which Tracker doesn’t is jamming protection. If thieves try to jam the tracker’s GSM/GPS signals, the unit switches to using RF signals. They claim it can also detect if there is remote jamming near where you parked and send an SMS warning in that event.

No idea how effective it really is but I figured it would be better to have that fallback than not at all.

Netstar also has a slightly higher recovery rate than Tracker (I think 90% versus 86%) although Tracker has a higher absolute number of recoveries. So I think you can’t really go wrong with either here.
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Nice dude, you made up my mind, I applied for Netstar! Now their fitment booking app isn’t working (just keeps throwing an error and asks me to try again).
 
Foxhound5366 said:
Have you seen this happen recently? I’d think that with POPI that would be inadmissible in court.
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We, as brokers won't deal with insurers that act in that way, but yes it has and continues to happen and especially on insurer installed trackers but also on self installed.
 
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