Needless to say, if my 4Runner gets stolen, I want it back. I really don't want to do all that work again and I will not get compensated for most of it from the insurance company.

I like the idea of a satelite tracking the truck and police going and getting it.

Do I have to go to a dealer and get it installed or can you install it yourself?

 

check on other GPS tracking systems as well.

lojack has some "dead zones" that i'm sure the crooks know about...

http://www.lojack.com/where/lojack-coverage-areas.cfm

 

hella expensive, but complete coverage.

i would suspect that if somebody five-fingered your runner, it would be in the middle of nowhere in the desert in a matter of an hour or two and would be stripped for parts. i doubt somebody would steal it to drive it around town.

http://www.firststreetonline.com/product.jsp?path=-1|7864|11506&id=37533&promotion=86072

http://www.mymobileguardian.com/how_default.asp

 

Lojack works ok but what you have to find out is how many police cars are in the area where you mostly travel because lojack depneds on the closest police car to your stolen vehicle. Reason being is if your car is flying down the highway and the closest car is 2 towns away they will not be able to locate your vehicle. The best lojack system to get is the one with a key chain transponder. what it does is when you leave your vehicle and you walk away and a crook decides to steal your vehicle lojack will call a pre recorded number to ask if you are in your car. It pretty much responds because your transponder on your key chain and on your car are not communicating. This is the system to get if you are to get lojack at all and from what i understand you can not install this yourself because of the location of the transponders in your vehicle are different for every car so as long as there is a Lojack certified technician near your area you will be ok .
Another option would be a thing called clearpoint which is a gps tracker nice thing is if you get the top of the line equipment you can even track how fast your car has been going over the past couple of hundred miles or so. you could track your kids or what not to seee how fast they are presently going. bad thing is once you hit an underground parking or covered anything you run the high risk that it will not work.
Good luck i hope this helps

 

Thanks.

 

I have the LoJack Early Warning system, which is what Lone4Runner talked about and it really gives me peace of mind. Only downside is that you have to call the police to report it stolen before your transponder emits the signal that says it's stolen. I chatted with the guy that installed my unit and he said that there are numerous places for them to put it in so thieves have a harder time locating it. You're not even allowed to know where they put the LoJack. LoJack says that the battery is good for life but it should be replaced every 3 years to make sure that it will still work. You can program email addresses and phone numbers when you register your system too.

 

There's a demand for 4x4s in Mexico. We'll see waves of 4WDs stolen in the San Diego county time to time.