Tracker

Does anyone have any advice or information on security trackers please? Are they worth having?  We've been offered the Sargent for £95 per annum and understand that some insurers offer a discount for having this.  We had a CAT1 fitted, and the Sargent gives us CAT6 in addition.

Have you not got the first year free? My Symbol did when I picked it up 6 months ago.
As to your question, I think I will be renewing at the end of the year. As you say a lot of insurance companies give a discount (or insist on an alarm or tracker being fitted) although if I had an alarm fitted then I probably wouldn’t bother with the tracker.

Edit...just noticed you have a different tracker to the one fitted on mine, I’m guessing A/S have changed suppliers.

From a security perspective, the more security features fitted, the less likelihood of a loss through theft. So, the £95 premium for the tracker activation would be worth it, imo.

Things vary so much from one insurance company to another, that’s it’s difficult to comment on how much discount you could achieve by activating it. It may be worth contacting your current insurer, or a few others and see how the quote varies with and without the tracker activated.

While my pride and joy was brand new, I drove it down from the north east to Vanbitz in Taunton for one of their MetaTrak none start systems and an alarm to be fitted.
Unless I send a text to the system, it will not start, even with the keys.

don't lose your phone:smile!:

My experience was with a Vanbitz/Trackstar installation in the last van and on installation we paid “life subscription “. about 3 years subs equiv.  I cannot fault them

Now compared with the Hal things that AS supply they are useless never had one but I get calls telling me a van I have never owned is on the move. So annoying I have put them on the junk callers list

You may pay a bit more at Vanbitz but you do get reliability

Kingham wrote:While my pride and joy was brand new, I drove it down from the north east to Vanbitz in Taunton for one of their MetaTrak none start systems and an alarm to be fitted.
Unless I send a text to the system, it will not start, even with the keys.

What do you do if you have no phone signal?

I've got the HAL tracker in my symbol that comes fitted from factory and you just pay for the subscription.

Seems to work well - you send it a text to disarm and that's it.  It's a tracker not an immobilisor (that's separate) so even if in a low signal area you can use the van as normal and then once the signal picks up and the text gets sent it'll disarm at that point.

If the tracker signal is good but your phone isn't (different networks) the company will monitor the van and try to call you, but if no signal they'll suspect you can't send the text and just keep an eye on location etc to inform the police of if needed.  Think I've only had it a couple of times when signal wasn't good in Wales, but even in remote area's of Scotland these days there's usually enough signal within a mile or two of driving that it gets the text message out.

My van came with a HAL Locate tracker fitted and I’m going to check with my insurer that they’re ok with it being disabled, in lieu of having MetaTrak fitted.

This summer in particular it seems that HAL Locate have not switched their system clock over to British Summer Time. I’m in full signal with 4G coverage and the last two times I have sent a ‘disarm’ text, within 20 minutes I have received a ‘moved’ alert, showing the time an hour out. 
My sons are down as secondary contacts for HAL and they have both blocked the number, due to the amount of false calls. 

I can’t wait to dump the system !

I got rid of my HAL after only a few months in to a two year contract - it drove me absolutely bloody insane.

Replaced with a device from tracker.co.uk instead.

Kingham wrote:
My sons are down as secondary contacts for HAL and they have both blocked the number, due to the amount of false calls. 

HAL don't even call me anymore

Must admit I've not had an issue with HAL, so much so I just renewed my subscription.

Texts work fine and don't get false alarms.  They called me a couple of times to check if the van was still in my possession when I forgot to disarm it, so it proves it works.

Fair enough if you've had a bad experience with them though, happens with all systems I guess at some point.

SteveUK wrote:

Kingham wrote:While my pride and joy was brand new, I drove it down from the north east to Vanbitz in Taunton for one of their MetaTrak none start systems and an alarm to be fitted.
Unless I send a text to the system, it will not start, even with the keys.

What do you do if you have no phone signal?

I missed this one whilst away and using my phone for WiFi. 

The none start can only be armed while in phone signal, which comes in to its own at home, where my keys would be available to a successful house burglar. I have full signal at home, so arming it would never be a problem. 
I still use the none start when I’m away from home, but it’s not so important to me, as I will always have my keys in my possession. If I’m out of signal, which has happened occasionally out in the wilds, I just set the Strikeback+ alarm.

What if you lose your phone?