I had an idea for for a cheap car tracking system. Instead of buying one of these expensive GPS tracking systems has anyone had the idea to leave an old cellphone in a car and leaving E911 location activated? Aren't they still able to be tracked? I don't know with what info you go to the phone with for them to start the process of tracking though.

You could run a dedicated power to a charger/phone anywhere in a car. The advantage of this is you could set this rig up anywhere in your car, from hidden under the hood, to somewhere in the trunk since it is done yourself so there is no standard place to look. If you are worried about it draining your battery you can just have a dedicated old phone spot that every few days you charge or rig up a charging system that you can activate occasionally when you drive to cheap the charge up on the phone. Another idea is to get a bigger battery that has a longer cycle between charges.

Assuming that they are able to still track a deactivated phone (since you can since at least call 911) then this would be the most cost effective car GPS tracking system ever.

What do people think, good idea or no? Or am I missing something about the cell tracking?

 

This has been discussed several times before and it's been determined that even if it's an active line of service, no cell phone company will track the phone to locate a stolen car.

 

Why do we have to get this topic every two weeks? Can't they put it on Mythbusters?

 

hahahaha

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by B18C_EJ8 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">This has been discussed several times before and it's been determined that even if it's an active line of service, no cell phone company will track the phone to locate a stolen car.</TD></TR></TABLE>

But will they locate a stolen car that was just involved in a double homicide, kidnapping, and terrorist acts?

 

This is getting realy old, Why do people want to be soooooo cheap.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by COMplex. &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

But will they locate a stolen car that was just involved in a double homicide, kidnapping, and terrorist acts?</TD></TR></TABLE>

Doubtful...

Here's an idea... Call your carrier and ask them...

 

Decided to call around and guess what I found. What you do is your contact your police department and file a report from there you can get things rolling. After that the police take it from there with the carrier to locate the car. At least that's what my police department will do. Talked to my carrier and they said they could do nothing to search for a phone.
Know what's really old? Lame people like wrx-killer that offer no help at all and bash. If you're going to bash at least put something useful or informative in your post.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by hoffmann277 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Decided to call around and guess what I found. What you do is your contact your police department and file a report from there you can get things rolling. After that the police take it from there with the carrier to locate the car. At least that's what my police department will do. Talked to my carrier and they said they could do nothing to search for a phone.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Your results may vary. And depending on how overloaded your police department is, after you file your report, it may be 24-48 hours before they contact the carrier, by which time your car is long gone/stripped/torched/whatever...

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Know what's really old? Lame people like wrx-killer that offer no help at all and bash. If you're going to bash at least put something useful or informative in your post.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Before you start calling people lame, you might want to consider the fact that WRX is one of the more helpful people in this section of the site, and like most of us around here, gets very tired of seeing the same topics over & over when a simple search would have provided the answer you were looking for and would have prevented this useless thread.

 

The police aren't going to go investigating your stolen car, by trying to figure out where a cellphone is. They don't have time for that and they may say they will but the truth is of all the people, including myself, who have had cars stolen, they never did a thing to help except call me when it turned up on the side of the road.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by hoffmann277 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
Know what's really old? Lame people like wrx-killer that offer no help at all and bash. If you're going to bash at least put something useful or informative in your post.</TD></TR></TABLE>

First, have you used the search button? Second, have you read the listing that it gave you. With all the post that I replied to with all the infomation that I went out on my own time to get. 3 hours on the phone with customer service from all three major carriers. 4 trips to 4 local pd departments. Not just talking to a desk clerk. But to a caption. Now If you did not search. Thats not my fault. But seeing that you only have 26 post your still wet behind the ears here being a noob.

I will state this again. Phone carriers will not track a phone that is not activated with them. Nor a phone that is activated with them unless these are met. They will not track a phone with out a court order. And this is because of a stalking order. The phone company will not give any infomation on location of the phone unless a police department provides the carrier of information that linked to a murder in progress, kidnapping- Must be 24 hours before a kidnapping is reported. Or someone was taking with out there permission buy use of deadly force. Missing person-reffer to 24 hours. Or if the phone will be used to threaten homeland security. It goes deeper but I not going to retype a whole page. Oyea. Any person falsing information to start a illeagal track will face felony charges which can result in 1-2 years in jail and fines up to 10k in fines.

So go ahead. is it worth it to brake the law.