[FrenchBoy]

When I bought my car, I hesitated between Lojack and the BMW alarm (about the same price ~$500). I went with Lojack primarily because I think car alarms are useless and because my insurance deduction (through AAA) was $150 annually. I have had the car for 4 years now and Lojack has paid itself.

The idea that, in case of a theft, you would rather have the insurance money than your car back is only valid if the car is very recent. My car is 4 years old, worth about 20K and I am still paying for it. If I needed to replace it with the insurance money minus the remaining of the loan, I would have to add quite a bit to buy a new or similar one. If my car was stolen, I would rather get it back and and get it fixed.

 

[FrenchBoy]

Funny thing. I actually had my Lojack inspected today (4 years old install, paid $69 to have Lojack check the signal strength and the back-up battery. All was good).

I asked the technician if he knew much about how easy it was for thieves to steal cars with encoded keys. He has been with Lojack for 17 years and has seen many BMW, Audi, etc. stolen and recovered. He told me that the encoded key is a deterrent for joy-riders only. Professionals could care less. They come with a laptop, break in the car, plug the laptop to the OBD port and start the car by bypassing the whole ignition system.

Scary...

Of course, he told me that Lojack is the only system that works