Why do folks still get car alarms? (vehicles, manual transmission, car audio)
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It's not uncommon to walk through a parking lot and see and hear a car alarm going off. You can sometimes see the car itself with it's lights flashing and all the noise but it's so common now that nobody even notices. These types of alarms are usually the cheap kind that you can get installed for a few bucks at most car audio places. I just don't understand the point of these alarms for a few reasons.
1) Most alarms go off when you are inside someplace so as they are going off the owner has no idea the alarm is going off.
2)Even if someone is actively trying to steal the car and the alarm is going off and you see the thief behind the wheel trying to hot wire the car what is the average witness going to do? Do they think someone with a Batman complex is going to approach the thief and apprehend them while the authorities are called?
3)What about those morons that trigger their own alarms all the time? Example most common is when I go get some gas at a station and the guy is pumping his gas and when he opens his door after he's done there goes the alarm. Why would they arm the alarm while they are just standing at the pump?
4) The worst offender is the oversensitive alarm that goes off in the middle of the night in a residential area. Alarm can get triggered by something as simple as a cat jumping on the hood or another cars deep sounding exhaust or bass. Usually these cars are pieces of junk that are in no threat of ever being stolen.
It has been proven that just having an alarm will deter many thieves. Nothing will stop a thief if they want something bad enough but many times they will move on to a car with no alarm
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Most of the problems in Seattle are smash & grab, where they break a window and take whatever they can find in the car, mostly tourist shopping bags and personal electronics. Alarms won't help because they are in an out so fast. If
someone wants to steal a car they will be able to disable the alarm.
I have an alarm on my car that pages me whenever it goes off so it gives me some peace of mind. I live in a relatively low-crime area so I have it mostly so that when someone dings my car in the parking lot I will know. You may be seeing these annoying alarms go off in parking lots but what if someone was trying to steal the car from your driveway? Then you would probably would know something is up and hopefully it would be enough to deter a thief.
1. Deterrent. As stated above, if my car has an alarm, and the car next to it doesn't, guess which car a thief is going to break into to steal whatever is in it?
2. Convenience/fun. Both of my vehicles came with "theft deterrent systems". The aftermarket units I installed have several times the remote control range as the factory versions. They also have remote start/windows/all the usual remote stuff. If it starts to rain, I can roll the windows up via remote. I can leave them running but secure and take the key with me when I make a quick stop, such as a bank or convenience store.
3. Ability to tailor the system. I have several adjustments to reduce the falsing, unlike factory alarms. Mine almost never go off.
4. Two way communication. Tells me that the system is armed, triggered, engine running, etc. I'm sure some factory systems do this, but I can put one of these on most any car.
My systems don't chirp on arm/disarm, and don't tell people to step away. The whole point of an alarm system is to keep your stuff intact, so why advertise that there may be something worth stealing?
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