SHMBO recently bought a new Focus lovely car and all that, we had it alpha dotted as well to stop it going walkies, well for the parts anyway.
Has anyone ever had any comeback, after that misfortune happened to them? i.e doe's it work.
Just interested thats all..
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It's been used for years in the motorcycle industry in various forms, so much so that almost every new bike has it done by the dealer before it leaves the showroom, as to does it work well i suppose if the law ever recover the bike or parts of it they would do a standerd check, but i dont think it's much of a deterent to the thief judgeing by the amount of bikes stolen and never recovered.
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My Suzuki came with it ready fitted. As the dealer said, if there are two bikes parked side by side it is the one without the Alpha Dot stickers that a thief will go for.
Knocked a few quid off the insurance, too.
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My cbr600 has it, i think all honda's have had it as standerd for a couple years but they are still the most stolen bikes around.
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I think MCN once claimed that more Honda's were being stolen than were being sold new during a particularly bad period.
Not too surprising as built in security on bikes is light years behind the car world.
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Excuse my ignorance, but what are Alpha Dots?
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Alfafan
These are microdots with a code number on them, there are thousands of them in a clear "varnish" that is painted on all over the bile,car,caravan what ever. If ever the machine is stolen and then recovered or parts of they can be looked for and if found checked against a database.
Bill
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Not too surprising as built in security on bikes is light years behind the car world.
How can you make something that can be lifted by two people secure?
It's either big chain to something solid or nothing. Alarms etc are a waste of time.
MCN once 'nicked' a CBR600. Took then 6 seconds before the van doors were shut.
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These are my own opinions, and not necessarily those of all Toads.
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"How can you make something that can be lifted by two people secure?"
You can't, movement alarms help, chaining it to something relies on the strength of the padlock.
There's safety in numbers, though. About 16 or so bikes park in the bay I use in London. The chances of your being the one is therefore reduced (it helps if your bike is old and tatty, like mine) although I've not heard of one going from there.
Quite a lot, particularly scooters and amall bikes, go from drives etc. at home and are then ridden through the fields by yobs, dropped and trashed. Saw one at my dealers a fortnight old an with 100 miles on the clock that had been subjected to this treatment.
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Has technology caught up with bikes yet? That is to have an imobiliser fitted as standard , like most, if not all cars these days?
I can remember in my days of tinkering with bikes the simplicity of being able to hotwire them. The flimsy steering locks didn't help much either.
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"Knocked a few quid off the insurance, too."
That's interesting because on our car insurance the company (Tesco's - best qoute) did not put any reduction on for the dots on our car. No matter because it wasn't that dear anyway.
Has anyone had Plod or who-ever inform them of items recovered and seen the culprits caught?
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>>Excuse my ignorance, but what are Alpha Dots?<<
search google - and the first link is
www.alpha-dot.co.uk/
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Or search for Datatag.
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These are my own opinions, and not necessarily those of all Toads.
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Or search for "smartwater".
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RiDE mags also did a bike theft expose, this time 'stealing' about four from busy town centres. They drove a van up, lifted the bikes into the back and drove off. Even with alarms going off. Not an eyelid was batted by Joe Public.
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