Well guys...it seems that I too have fallen victim to the not so honest people out there. Came home from out of town to find something amiss with the way things looked in my yard. My '00 SD had the tailgate down....HMMMMMmmmmm
Not a good feeling...I walked up and found the drivers door lock had been punched...slightly worse feeling. Opened up the door to discover my sc tuner, ALL my tools in the back seat, stuff from the door pockets ,etc. were missing....Sickening feeling! But then I realized even worse, my '97 350 with utility bed was NOWHERE TO BE FOUND!

Thank goodness for insurance both vehicle AND property...the double coverage has meant being able to get it all replaced...got the 97 back(stripped of course) and so far nearly 40k reimbursed from the ins co. and I'm not done replacing tools

 

I think if the guy was legit he would have said he was looking for a certain truck and not ran off scared of getting caught. Burning rubber to get away doesn't seem like a repo guy.

 

I forgot the important part...

When I got the truck back, I took the time to put in a kill switch so even if the ignition was punched they're gonna have a real tough time driving it away. I used an old fashioned floor mounted dimmer switch and connected it to the starter. This way you have to push down on the floor switch while starting the truck. (I removed the inner catch so it is just a spring loaded/normally open switch)

The switch is easily accessible, (no one can see you reaching under the dash even if they are sitting in the passenger seat)-a telltale sign you have a kill switch

This won't keep em from breaking in, but at least they can't drive it away!

We all know that locks and alarms only keep out honest people.

 

When I bought my 92 F150, it has a system installed to interrupt the starter circuit. Unless you have this plastic key/chip inserted it won't start. Without it, you turn the key and you get zip...no clicks no nothing...almost like a dead battery except all the interior lights are strong. The F250 is "dad's toy" so I guess I need to look into more protection.

 

Lojack is just about worthless. It doesn't work everywhere, you can't get it activated until a Police Officer meets you in person, and the Lojack install techs just don't care enough to hide the unit. It's almost always zip-tied right underneath the dash.

And the early warning upgrade can take an hour before notification. 30 minutes to an hour on average. Once you are notified, and validate your vehicle is gone, you have to call the police. Wait another hour or more. Then they get to you, fill out a police report, and activate the unit. Hopefully a patrol car with the lojack tracking system is available. Using only one car is extremely slow, so typically they try to use two cars. It's insane how much time can pass before they ever come CLOSE to your vehicle. By the time the ducks are in a row, your vehicle has been stripped of lojack or across the border, where it doesn't matter anymore.

If you get a GPS based system that you can activate yourself, this upgrades the case to a Priority 1, and the police immediately go after the vehicle. They don't bother talking to you first. This is also cheaper than the $1000 lojack with early warning.

You still obviously need to hide it in a good place, but at least _YOU_ can get the location of your vehicle. It also doesn't work in all places like Lojack (cell phone based, just like on-star).. But I'd take the speed in recovery via a GPS system over lojack anyday.

 

You must not know any repo guys......