Anti-Theft

Without arming the enemy, does anyone know the weaknesses of these cars, and any tricks to deter theft. My car stands out in my area. I bought it for that reason, but I want to protect it. At this point I don't care what amount my insurance would give me in the event of theft, all I would want is my car.
It's parked outside my bedroom window in the driveway when at home, and in the parking lot camera 'sweet-spot' at work.
When I leave it, I lock it with the remote and visually check the doors to be sure the locks are down.
I don't think I have the towing alarm thing, how would I know if I do? what do I look for? I am concerned about vandalism, and more concerned about it being outright stolen. I am pretty confident in my current practices and the cars anti-theft systems, but I am always looking for input.

hmm, towing alarm...

Care to indulge?

Look at your owner's manual. I don't know the details of it but it is described in there. I know only because I looked after trying unsuccessfully to have the remote key reset itself.

I think he might be referrring to a movement sensor, dont know if we have one of those

The 95 has it.

I always wanted to put a kill switch on my cars, but never got around to it. I think they're great because they work weather or not you already have an alarm, and they're very simple to put in.

Only problem with them is operator error when you forget you put it in after coming back from a week vacation.

If you concerned about the driveaway type thief then a fuel shut off switch is your best investment. Connect a switch, either hidden or assign one of the existing ones a new purpose, to the fuel pump relay. No gas, no go.

Factory alarm is already fuel cut off... not starter cut off.

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Originally Posted by DanDombrowski

I always wanted to put a kill switch on my cars,

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I saw your signature with the speed indication and could not resist uploading a picture I took of the 5 door 1.8L 5 speed Astra we rented in Spain this past January. With 5 adult passengers and full luggage, we pushed it to the limit. But 195 km/h was as fast as it will go.

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...f/DSC_4177.jpg

Seth Effrican idea struck me as good,gas jets under the sills wired to alarm or button,voila,roasted thief! Remember anything the factory puts on will have a fix so put your own idea on and tell nobody.I will only say mine has a pay-as-you-go camera phone and a pressurized can of hydrogen sulphide, work it out for yourself but never had a problem,did use up two cans in USSR tho.

Nice. http://www.smartuki.com/why.html - Do you work here?

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Originally Posted by Barney Paull-Edwards

Seth Effrican idea struck me as good,gas jets under the sills wired to alarm or button,voila,roasted thief! Remember anything the factory puts on will have a fix so put your own idea on and tell nobody.I will only say mine has a pay-as-you-go camera phone and a pressurized can of hydrogen sulphide, work it out for yourself but never had a problem,did use up two cans in USSR tho.

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Get a GPS tracking unit, mercury switches for your alarm, enable the OBC lock, put in a kill switch (I have the perfect place).

Lastly, put ugly 15" steel wheels with no hubcaps on it ;)

Photobucket is blocked at work, I promise to look when I get home though.

Yeah, those 1.8L in europe usually have a little pep. We were lucky, I think ours had a 2.8L motor in it - it was way bigger than what most people were driving around (ours was a rental too BTW, went to Germa...excuse me, the FATHERLAND).

The max I got the Vectra up to was 230kph on an open stretch of the autobahn (with the GF sleeping :) ). The reason I have the photo of going around 185 or so was because my GF was fooling around with the camera and taking a picture of the GPS unit in the car, and I didn't notice the speedo in the picture until we were showing our photos to my GFs parents!

My thought was to have a seperate and simple device that will function even if the factory alarm is defeated or someone has keys.

any factory device has a factory bypass.


my suggestion for drive away theft.

a good 2 way aftermarket alarm, with a seperate ignition kill circuit that is triggerdd only off the remote auxilary outs.

then without the remote, there really is no way to start the car unless you un install everything. you can't put it in valet mode to bypass since turning the key doesn't give you ignition without the remote to use valet mode. Pulling the wire harness off the alarm will not return it to a working state either as on most alarm installs, because the alarm brain is required to disable the additional external ignition kill.
This setup is required in el paso county by all the insurance companies on all new hummers and cadillac suvs before they will issue insurance for them. Since then very few have been stolen in el paso (before it was several a month), so apparently the thieves are stealing them from other places.


Tow away theft is becoming more and more common. Tow truck shows up and picks up a car, no one even thinks of questioning it.
thus my recommendation for tow away theft
of a good two way as above and the addition of a tilt sensor to help alert you to this.

also recommend adding a couple of those mini piezo sirens, one in the car and one at the rear of the car to make your alarm sound different than anyone elses. A couple of strobes inside will make it hard for passersby to ignore the car the car at night, and also can make it hard for a thief to see well enough to want to mess with bypassing the alarm.

But in the end if they really want it, they'll just tow it and take it somewhere else to tear it apart.

No, but there`s one out the back,anything that`ll outdrag an M5 or a 360 and look like **** is my kind car.Going down the road @ 14250rpm is orgasmic!