hey,
people always messing around with my car on the street, so i decided to install an alarm system in my car.

Anyone know how to choose an alarm system? Like what kind of feature I need to look for? Any brand that's good, affordable, reliable?
any suggestions will help, thanks.

1995 4dr accord

 

Alarms are useless, that's all you need to know. I'll give you a break down on why they're useless:


1. Thief approaches your car.
2. Thief takes a 12v battery and touches it against your fender.
3. Battery fuse on your car blows which also disables your alarm.
4. Thief enters your car, pulls one wire off of your ignition switch to disable starter kill.
5. Fuse is replaced, siren is cut.
6. 90 seconds after step 1, your car is gone.

 

any PROS besides the CONS?

 

Pros:

1. Everyone will think you've got something worth stealing.
2. Keyless entry, windows roll up automatically, and remote start.
3. Your neighbors cat will learn to stop walking all over your car after setting the alarm a few times.
4. You get a really cool blinking light.
5. You get to relive the mid 90s by carrying a pager again.
6. Rookie thieves will be deterred by the blinking light.
7. ????
8. Profit

 

Get a detachable steering wheel.Hard to steel a car when you can't steer it.Although,if thieves want it bad enough,unless you have a garage and a shotgun,there's not much that will stop them.

 

dude go read up in the security forum. anyone who says an alarm is pointless is 1. a thief themselves or 2. doesnt know about security.

READ: an alarm is only pointless if installed wrong. a full stealth install with tilt sensors, glass break sensors, and backup battery is the best layer of security!!! a battery to the fender may blow the fuse connecting the alarm to the cars batter but will not effect the backup battery (that means HONK HONK when the thief tries to steal your sh*t) tilt sensors will even slow thieves who try to tow your car (no one wants to tow a car with its alarm going off, and since your alarm has a stealth install the thief doesnt even know where to look to disconnect it.)

and btw a detachable steering wheel doesnt do much when the thief wants to tow your car (flatbeds are getting common) and besides that it sounds like people are just vandalizing the OP's car not stealing the car it self.

 

^+1 IMO car alarms have always been a pain in the *** because they have come on cars that I have bought and people seem to cut corners when installing. If you do it right the first time they can be alright. I would only recommend installing one if you have a ton of money in electronics that you don't want stolen, from the average theif. A well groomed crook will get what they want regardless though.

 

Stealth alarm and various kill switches are very effective! Starter kill at starter=effective.
Fuel pump kill switch=effective. Check out the audio and security threads. Lots of info

 

THIS HAS ALREADY BEEN COVERED HERE'S A LINK www.honda-tech.com/showthread.php?t=2518715

 

took the words right out of my mouth

 

I love mine. Viper model 5000; now discontinued.

But then I also did this:

 

very very true! thankfully the vast majority of thieves dont fit into this category... yet anyways. it seems like more and more are moving into it recently though

my over all point is that even a basic alarm will do wonders against people trying to steal your radio and some vandalism. (especially with a pitbull inside waiting for you to turn it loose on them ) nothing will stop a dedicated theif from stealing your car though. even a garage wont stop one who really wants your car.

 

1 question? Step number 2!!!
How in the hell would a battery to the fender F-up the car. I can weld anything in my car with no problems. Without un hooking anything. Where did you learn this??? Gone in 60 seconds???hmmm LOL

 

lol i wasnt even going to get into whats wrong with his car stealing techniques. STEP NUMBER 4, with relays installed properly it is much more than one wire that must be disconnected in order to make the car start. STEP NUMBER 5, why the hell would someone wait till last to disable the siren? and if the install is done correctly they cant even find the siren or the alarm in the first place making both of these steps completely wrong.

my guess is that slomofo had a car stolen that had an alarm that was installed in plain site (at least plain site to a thief) and now believes that they are useless.

i am tempted to hook a battery to my fender now just to see what happens.

 

no gone in 60 seconds was the shorting out the parking light....lol...get it right....ive heard of the fender trick...not sure how much of it i believe do to the fender having a coat of paint over it which doesnt conduct as well....would be interesting to find out though

 

I've heard that some theif will put huge magnetic thingy on top of the hood just right above the battery and that kills the battery. Then they find where the alarm wires are at and cut it which I heard are mostly behind the driverside fenders, but who knows. Just stuff I heard, I'm not exactly sure how its done.

 

lets not get into telling people how to do it.

i'm pretty sure that wouldnt work with a backup battery on the alarm though. it would just cut the power from the cars battery and set it off. same thing goes for the battery to the fender.

 

Haha. yeah, lets not go there. lol I don't know how all this would work but then again, thats just stuff I heard from my friends.

 

lol the last thing we need is a bunch more thieves running around!

to the OP i hope you found the info you needed in the audio/security forum. i guess we kinda jacked this thread.

 

Sorry, not a thief, so I just guessed the order when making up that list, but I put theft recoveries back together on a daily basis. Some of these people have no alarms at all, some have really expensive alarms, some have cheap alarms, regardless, all had their **** stolen. I find a LOT of burn marks on fenders from people with alarms. When you take your power wire and ground it, your battery fuse blows, and all of these people didn't hear their alarms going off, I'm assuming the lack of battery fuse is the reason they didn't hear it go off.


Aaaaaand, yes, my Integra which had an alarm as well as my Civic which didn't have an alarm were both stolen. The Civic had no steering wheel, so I'm assuming it was flat bedded out.

 

I did a stealth alarm install myself with backup battery and several sensors. Paying a shop to do it is not going to help much at all because you won't know what to do if something is wrong and they'll probably take shortcuts. Took me 3 days to do it (with the car completely non-functioning during that time.)

I also had a removable steering wheel with NRG lock set.

I felt my car was fairly safe and never had issues with it.

 

oh sorry if i made it sound like i thought you were a thief. i know you are a pretty well known member around here.

you are right about not having a battery fuse (whether its blown or removed) causing an alarm not to go off. that is the reason for a backup battery. if one is installed then when the alarm looses its connection to the car's battery the alarm will be set off even if no other triggers are set off and it will be powered by the backup battery. to my understanding the cheaper ones will power it for about 10 minutes and more expensive ones can power it for over half an hour. tilt sensors deffinatly help if the car is put on a flat bed but i have heard of cars with tilt sensors being stolen (some which had no steering wheel and some with backup batteries.) and the owner never hearing the alarm, but by all means they help alot. another VERY VERY important part of an alarm install is to have the alarm brain and sirens hidden inside a steel box is common and very helpful. this is usually welded somewhere inside the dash so that it is a b*tch to get to (if you have a hard time getting to it knowing where it is even a good thief will have a bit of a hard time disconnecting it.) glass break sensors are essential as someone can break the glass and steal anything they want and leave the car without them.