Lo Jack, anyone ever loose something and get it back?

[Rip Wheeler]

Have you lost something with a Lo Jack? And how long was it before you got it back, if you got it back. http://www.lojack.com if you havent heard of it.

[Rip Wheeler]

OK, anyone have a Lo Jack installed?

[Chevy_Cowboy]

My Dell XPS laptop came with a free year of LoJack, never lost it though so cant really comment on their service.

No experience at all with the car systems, but if its anything like Onstar, it should work great.

[EMARacing]

I don't personally have LoJack on anything, but I do work in a dealership and we sell LoJack and have several sucess recovery stories. Its a product I believe in.

Until today they haven't had a product for off-road vehicles, but our LoJack rep stopped by today to show us one for off-road vehicles. I'll have to look into it better tomorrow.

[Trucker Kev]

It seems to be a very effective system. Of the law enforcement agencies I know of, only about half of their patrol cars have lojack receivers installed in them. Only the patrol cars that have the receivers installed can pick up the signal transmitted by the system in your car. Most police airplanes and helicopters have receivers too.

When your car is stolen and police notify their dispatchers of the theft, the dispatchers must enter the vehicle into a data base. It is key to get it reported as soon as possible. If the theives got a jump start on you, your chances of a recovery are much smaller. As soon as that information is added to the data base, the dispatcher will learn that the vehicle is equipped with lo jack. Lo Jack is linked with the data base, so when the vehicle is entered as a stolen vehicle, the transmitter automatically starts, well...transmitting. All of that happens within seconds of the vehicle being reported stolen and entered in the system. Any police vehicle with the reciever can then pick up the signal within several miles of the stolen car. It will even work through walls. It gives the officer a code, which he or she gives to the dispatcher. Using that code, the dispatcher will be able to tell the officers what type, model, color, etc. of vehicle they are looking for. It also gives the officer a tone that gets faster the closer they are and arrows that point in the direction of the signal. Often times, vehicles are found abandoned in parking lots with few or no items missing. Others are found stripped in a garage somewhere. Sometimes officers get lucky and actually find the dirtbags driving it. Usually if the signal is picked up, the car is found in one condition or another, but it is found. LoJack has also lead to some really good investigations that uncover a lot of stuff.

By the way, I don't work for LoJack, nor do I have it installed in my cars. But the little I do know about it, I would trust it. I can't speak for the type installed in m/c's or laptops though.

Kev

[k2rider]

I have Lojack in one of our cars. It's far and away the best system out there if you actually want to get your car back. I work in law enforcement and my patrol car has a Lojack locater system installed. I have personally recovered 5-7 cars myself in the past year. In the past, I've recovered cars less than an hour after they have been stolen. Unfortunately for us, we are right next to the Mexican border and alot cars end up down there...totally out of reach for Lojack or the police.

[Pukeballs]

OK, anyone have a Lo Jack installed?

I have one installed in my truck. I signed up for it at the dealership when I bought it. A couple of days later a guy from LoJack came to the house and installed the system in the truck. He got real funny when I went outside to talk to him when he was working on it. He said no one is supposed to know where he mounts the unit to prevent fraud. Real top secret I guess.

[dkipz]

I do something similar for the dealers - it's GPS based so you don't have to rely on whether or not the folks looking for it have a tracker in the car to "follow the beeps". Real time GPS tracking - the basic plan we do it with has lifetime stolen vehicle location with no monthly/yearly fee. You can buy upgraded plans that allow you to track the vehicle X amount of times/year for a flat fee so you can see where the car is on your own (plus get high speed of the day and where it was). It also has outputs for unlocking doors or activating an aftermarket remote start via the internet if you hook them up and pay for the option. www.guidepointsystems.com The LoJack guys crack me up - they get all secretive about their stuff, but I find them all the time (must have a dozen of them laying around in my toolbox - they're not transferrable to a new owner, so if I find them in a trade in vehicle, I yank them). Looks like a black plastic box about the size of a pack of cigarettes with a coax cable coming out 24" to a foam antenna strip, with the power/ground wires coming out of the same location. If it has "early warning" there will be another box wired into the mix. The ones we do are either transferrable to the new owner at point of sale, or the unit can be R&R'ed to the new purchase vehicle. My bro in law does law enforcement in town and the "cat and mouse" tracking they have to do on the LoJacks drives him nuts - he'd much prefer a dispatcher give him real time GPS based data of where the car is going. Either way, any properly installed stolen vehicle recovery system does what it is supposed to do - get your car back. PM if you have any questions - Been doing tracking for 6 years now for dealers in my area...

Dan

[skookumrdr]

A guy rents a backhoe from one of the big rental companys near seattle and reports it stolen not knowing it had lo Jack. It was found burried on the guys property. What an Idot.