Need some thoughts from the alarm experts please. My Ford F150 has remote operated locks, interior lights, immobiliser and the associated gubbins. It does not however possess an alarm per se. In fact the handbook does not advise fitting one, which may interfere with the existing immobiliser electrics (it says).
However, having been "keyed" last week by a local Abu Sayyaf afficionado who clearly resented the US in Afghanistan, felt my US truck was somehow to blame, and whom I would have caught had an alarm alarmed me in time to catch him and send him back to Mother in a plastic bag, continually having security guards in mall car parks lean /sit on it and bang the paintwork with their guns, tasers handcuffs and other villain-apprehending ironmongery etc on their belts which are standard issue in the Philippine Islands, teenagers in my condo car park using it as a bumrest when they're having telephone sex, general "fingery" types who can't resist physical contact of some form or another, presumably driven by the irresistible need to see if what is before them really is what they see before them, and other irritating species. I have decided I need something to wake these idiots up and let me know so I can do my angry foreigner bit and chase them away with cries of "hijo de puta" and other Filipino-Spanish epithets, perhaps backed up by a length of 4 X 2. What I think I want therefore is a basic alarm set off by contact and/or motion. It can be wired entirely separately from all the other horrendously complicated looking electrics and doesn't have to get involved with existing circuits. Yes I will have to carry another remote along with the existing one but I can live with that.
I have looked at the multiplicitous array of Taiwanese and Japanese wizardry available where I live, but an alarm as described doesn't seem to be available. Local dealers say they can adapt them but that would be dodgy. If there is something in UK I can get it shipped.
Thanks in advance.
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I had an alarm fitted to my old Maestro which operated exactly how you describe above. It cost me 25 quid and was simply connected to the positive battery terminal. It measured the current across the battery over the first 30 seconds of arming so if anyone opened a door (and the interior light came on) it'd go off. Crude but effective.
More importantly it would detect contact and you could adjust how sensitive this was so it didn't go off every time a fly farted near it. Was very effective and several people who took too much interest in my old banger were "apprehended" before harm was done.
Still, my favoured approach to your problem is getting an old 12volt cattle electric fencer and wiring that up to the body of the car. If anyone touched it once they sure as hell won't do it again :o) Still, it might "interfere with existing immobiliser electronics"...
The above option I mentioned could be bought for approx 30 quid and if nothing else'd be worth a try...
Dan
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I mean the Alarm option re the 30 quid of course!
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Dan,
It is difficult to tell whether you are joking or not! I particularly like the 12v option, but i recall a few years ago (circa 1995?) a security guard prosecuted a motorist after being shocked by a car.
The owner had put a current inverter into the vehicle, with a plate under a wheel arch to give him a earth. The guard (who never explained in court WHAT he was doing near the car, which was deliberately parked in an out-of-the-way corner of the underground car park) notified Plod, who prosecuted the motorist.
Anybody recall this?
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Yes, I do.
There was an MGB workshop in Sunderland, which had a nice little GT. It had an alarm which spoke, when someone approached too close to the car. Something to the effect of "You are too close to the vehicle, please move away, or the alarm will sound. 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1. Perhaps Growler could get one of these and translate into Phillipino.
Jonathan
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I seem to recall a Maestro Turbo, some garish colour and straight off the cover of Max Power magazine being regularly parked next to Lloyds bank on Chester Road in Sunderland.
This car had a similar alarm to the one mentioned, and it was strategically parked so that you couldn't get into the bank without it telling you to clear off.
I should think if they could, the owner would have changed to warning from "step away" to "look at me, I'm a lovely motor"
Lee.
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The MG garage was near the Ivy House - I'm sure you know the one...
Jonathan
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Yep, the manager was a bloke called Bob as I recall, in the good old days when VAUX was still around.
In fact, I can recall the garage too, now I think about it. Wonder if it's still there. I'm still reeling from the demolition of Spanish city and Whitley Bay Ice Rink.
They'll be putting new bridges across the Tyne and strange, big glass roofed buildings on which you can walk in Sunderland....
Sorry, this isn't too car related, I just miss home :(
Maybe I can salvage the motoring link by wondering what happened to the horses and dray that used to deliver the ales around Sunderland. Their pollution was a little more solid that you'd get out of a catalytic converter!
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Yeah I remember that incident too - the guy was so fed up with having his Cosworth nicked he had dropped to those desperate measures. The Police never apparently once caught any of the lot who damaged/stole his car over the years but were only too happy to prosecute him for doing what he did to protect his mota.
Not quite like it is in South Africa where you can have gas jets up the side of your car to activate (and cook) anyone who is trying to carjack you! I like the idea of it myself, would also be useful to "warn" those cyclists who scrape past your car in London :o) I am JOKING on the last bit by the way! I think, anyway...
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my astra has a clifford alarm on it - pricey but worth the money
they have to be fitted by clifford though. but its set so if someone goes near my car it will bleep at them, and if they go inside it the alarm will trigger fully. (dual zone). So if anyone leans on it, it tells them off!
I think manufacturers such as toad do dual zone alarms now too, and they'll be cheaper than a clifford.
depends how much you wanna spend
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Yes, we have these voice alarms "Stand back!! Protected by Viper!!" Trouble is an awful lot of people have them and they're sort of a novelty, kids bang the car just to hear it yell at them. THanks but sorry.....
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Funny thing I saw was this guy who used to park his (very nice) Porsche 911 down the road from us when seeing his girlfriend who lived there. One of the neighbour's cats had discovered said Porsche was usually quite warm when it arrived as Mr Porsche Man had a habit of driving like a bit of a "pillock" through the town. Of course said cat, not at all bothered by the escalating urgency of the car's alarm telling it to p*ss off, would go to sleep on the car. Boyfriend would come flying out the house waving arms around and swearing, sometimes louder than the car, no doubt more concerned about his paintwork than annoyance to the neighbours. Cat would retire safely to a strategic place and return to the car once Porsche owner was safely back in girlfriend's house. It was always game in the Summer to sit in the front garden with a beer and bet on how long it'd be before he lost it and came out after the moggy.
Those little pleasures in life. The cat obviously had taste too as it never graced my Maestro with it's paw prints!
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Hey. I hear the same sentiments I was criticised for when I mentioned my Autotaser, the 50,000 volts steering lock I use. THe law is an ass in this regard. It may be illegal to hurt people, but certainly not when they started it and definitely not when they eye my wheels. THus I shall go on using my Taser.
Back to the thread. Thank you for the suggestions, by chance today I think I found the answer. It is made by Autotrend in the US, costs around 75 in UK money and is a motion-sensor based alarm which can be independently fitted from any of the vehicle's existing security systems (so it says).
It's not cats I'm worried about as I said, but guys resting their guns on my paintwork, the "touchy-feely_" brigade who can't keep their fingers to themselves, and especially those who seem to think it some kind of affront to their distorted value sets to see a large American pickup.
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I like the sound of the flame thrower. More info here home.intekom.com/intouch/archive/intouch/episode4/...m
Colin
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