I can understand why you would have a tracker in a car and have had plenty of cars with them installed, but since they're so easy to locate on a motorcycle they're pretty pointless. I live inside the M25 and have never had an insurer stipulate that a tracker is installed. Come to think of it I've had no requirements to install an alarm in the last 5 years either.
I've got one and haven't a clue where it is :Asshat: You say what's the point on a bike but it clearly works. Stating their pointless on a thread where someone has his bike back (and a naked, easy to access bike at that) is pretty... pointless :Bag:
You can get a GPS and GSM (the mobile phone element of the Bike-Trac) for about 50 quid from China which would completely defeat any tracker notification at all. Pop that on the seat, regardless of if it has a tracker or not to be sure and then do it at their leisure once back at their lockup. It will likely only stop the opportunist scrote wheeling away your pride and joy. It makes better sense on a car, on a bike there are about 2 places you can put it on a MTS neither of which is difficult to get to with a screwdriver or socket set. Even if they do not block it, they leave it in the street, gets recovered and then know it has one and come back better armed with the knowledge. If they want your bike, they will have it. Whilst I have one on my MTS, I probably wouldn't bother again. It gives nothing off the insurance - or rather the same price as any other single piece of security.. You get one discount for a valid security device, they don't stack. It's win-win for the insurance company, they give you nothing off, you get your bike recovered with god knows what happened to it while it was away and the insurance doesn't have to pay out much at all. Piece of mind yes, but at £300 + £100 per year for a saving of 10% if you have no other security...
What Moocow said .... exactly that .... that is why it is pointless. Any thief inspired to swipe a Ducati isn't generally going to be some clueless toe-rag. There's a reason why Ducati's are desirable, and just about every tracking device can be disabled for long enough by anyone with a rudimentary understanding of RF. We all know how easy it is to loose a signal on a mobile phone, and the type of place to go to in order for GPS not to work. At least on a car you've got a very good chance of hiding it and having it stay hidden and inaccessible. I had a NavTrack installed on a Noble M12 GTO3 and the fitter didn't want me within sight of the car when he was working on it, and throughout the entire time of ownership I had no idea where it was. I recon if you gave me 10 mins with almost any bike I'd be able to find it.
Just to qualify that statement, I was a motorcycle mechanic in a previous life. Perhaps I would have an unfair advantage over a lot of folk but under-estimate the guile of your average bike thief at your peril. Sure you can do it but a motorcycle is simply not a good fit for that particular security solution.
Regardless, it is undeniable that at least one bike has been recovered (the OP in the other thread), and if you check the biketrak site they are making numerous recoveries. I think some of you are giving thieves too much credit.... Sometimes they are just grunts grabbing shiny things! They haven't got the time or inclination to check, and so bikes are recovered. Fair enough if you don't want to use them, but they do work.
One swallow does not a summer make. (it makes a bloody good evening though) I don't doubt that they can be effective in some cases, but it's completely circumstantial and largely dependant on the thief being mentally retarded. Professional bike thieves exist and are very effective at what they do and a tracker, in this day and age, means nothing to them - if they want your bike then they are going to take your bike, end of. The evidence on the efficacy of a tracker is completely subjective. As a solution I don't think that anyone, if they sit down and really think about it, can actually say that it provides better protection than a good ol' lock and chain and a professionally fitted alarm - both of which are preventative measures, unlike a tracker. We all know the adage of "prevention being better than a cure", right?
These £50 units are typically TK-102 XEXUN knock offs, they're unreliable and typically fail to respond to commands. In no way do they compare to professional units. We've had multiple units in for testing and they're junk. Additionally, the Road Angel unit is designed to compact GSM blockers, which typically cannot cover the breath of frequencies now used by software configured radios. There are also various agencies and deployed hardware activity looking for people utilising such equipment. Road Angel, for £99 per year gives you get dedicated monitoring, SMS alerts and a human operator that calls you. That's great value. The quality, sensitivity and power consumption performance in the Road Angel units are by an order of magnitude better. Yes the unit is £300 to buy, which amortised over bike ownership duration (3 years?) is £100 yearly. So £200 a year to have a fully monitored service with proven success in recovering vehicles, that's a bargain in my book.
I went for the three year £230 option subscription which works out at £70 yearly. I've checked the online tracker browser & cannot fault it, not yet done the mobile activation or deactivation lark yet.
They were on the phone within minutes of it being recovered by SOS motorcycles (it's a multi, what do you expect). I understand the whole prevention is better than cure thing, but I twin mine with ground anchors and chains. Also, once your chain has been defeated, your only hope becomes a tracker. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
You can also transfer from one bike to another, so it can be more cost effective than £100/yr for the hardware, I transferred the from an 899 to a 1299 for approx 60 squids.
Agreed, if you're happy to have the bike returned to you then it's all good, but as far as I'm concerned if someone steals my bike it can stay gone. I don't want it back at any price, in which case I'd be better off taking that money and buying gap insurance instead - then I could just buy a brand new bike.
I fit them myself that way i no they will find the bike before the low life finds the tracker, problem when you have it fitted by the dealer is they usually hide it behind a panel, easy peasy fit however it's easily found as well. You need to hide it well.
I would prefer mine returned untouched (if luck was on my side) without the insurers finding out than going down your astronomical renewal premium hike route.. Just my opinion.
Indeed, so would I. I also want my own island in the Caribbean but that isn't likely to happen either. With no guarantees or ability to verify what has happened to your bike when out of your possession then I don't want it back. I've owned too many bikes and these days they are a means to an end to me and I don't get too emotionally attached to them. What one can say with certainty is that insurance hikes are a fact of life anyway.
Yes, and that will only get worse if we shrug our shoulders and don't do our bit to try to make stealing bikes as difficult as possible. Yes, some of the bikes may be damaged, but the more that can be tracked the more likely we are to find out who is behind it and put them off. I watched a programme about bike thieves and I can see why they did it. Hire a van with a mate, spent one night a month going and stealing 10 bikes that you get £1,000/bike for.... and enjoy the time you are not slaving away working. It does have a certain appeal whilst it is so easy to do....
