V8V Tracker is Misbehaving

[Shmee]

I have a complicated issue that I haven't quite got to the bottom of and I wanted to fire it to PH before I have to get my MY09 V8V to a dealership to have the Aston Martin Tracking thing looked at.

The short of it is that the car doesn't detect my tracker tags for about the first 5-10 minutes of a journey and then it sometimes 'loses' it mid-journey too.

When I get in the car using any one of the 3 tags I have or my connected mobile phone, about 75% of the time it does not detect it and the red light stays on. I've tried with just the one device, multiple devices, and all of them. It normally takes 10 minutes or so before it does eventually find the tag and then the light blinks off.

The obvious downside of this is that every single time I use the car I have to confirm the pin to say it isn't being stolen and after 2 weeks it's getting annoying!

I had hoped it might just fix itself but it's staying pretty much the same, does anybody have any ideas or should I be giving my dealership a call?

[robgt]

Hi Shmme, I had the same problem with my V8V. At first I was quite amazed at the efficiency of the Tracker Team, then you get peed off with the red light staying on. Plus I could never remember my pin number. Took the car back to Broughtons who re-programmed two new fobs even offered me additional spares because they are apparently always playing up. I was told that I wasn't to worry because they kept plenty in stock!
Having just typed the above I now realise that I have done nothing whatsoever in resolving your problem. Please excuse me I am blaming the morphine!
Rob

[rjn21]

If your insurance doesn't require, and you are comfortable without, the driver recognition feature of the tracking system, that can be turned off. It is then not Cat 5 approved, but is a passive tracking system in that you need to notice your car has been stolen, and then call Eurowatch who will ask the car to respond where it is. That will solve the red light and pin entry problem but degrades the tracking system. Make your own choice on that.
Otherwise, try new tags from dealer.

[Shmee]

rjn21 said:

If your insurance doesn't require, and you are comfortable without, the driver recognition feature of the tracking system, that can be turned off. It is then not Cat 5 approved, but is a passive tracking system in that you need to notice your car has been stolen, and then call Eurowatch who will ask the car to respond where it is. That will solve the red light and pin entry problem but degrades the tracking system. Make your own choice on that.
Otherwise, try new tags from dealer.

Sadly insurance requires it, the price of insurance shoots up by more than the annual tracker cost without it. Fortunately they call and one answers on the bluetooth and says the pin - it's very easy but getting tedious.

The thing is that it should work with my phone too so I'm not believing it could be a problem with all 3 tags and my BlackBerry.

To be honest I should probably just give my dealership a call, something in the car might just need reprogramming.

[don4l]

Have you spoken to Tech Support at Eurowatch? They are quite good.


If you cannot resolve the problem quickly, then you can ask Eurowatch to put your tracker into "service mode". This will stop all the alarms, but if you report the car stolen, then they can still track it.

Don
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[Old Skool]

Had a similar problem save for the 'losing link in mid-journey' point.

The problem with my car was not the tracker 'cards' but with the transponder unit in the car itself (i.e what the cards try and connect to)

Resolved under warranty with little hassle

[peterr96]

This is sounding vaguely familiar. I think I had the identical same issue a couple of years ago which I expected to be a faulty bluetooth receiver within the car. As you say I could not correlate both a phone and the tags having the same issue with anything other than the vehicle.
However (and this is where it gets a little fuzzy) I'm pretty certain that Eurowatch sorted it out by engaging with the vehicle while I was at it and had a tag and or phone. Cost me nothing to resolve.

I'd start there.

[pilgrim7777]

Unfortunately it is a common problem,
New car delivered within weeks tags became an issue they were replaced.
Tried to pair the mobiles again losing pairing.
Eurowatch not very helpful emailed several times absolutely no response.
Very grumpy about Eurowatch, best of luck....

[Shmee]

Sounds like a call to Eurowatch to see if they can fix it, if that doesn't work it will be a call to the dealership.

I believe their hours are short though so it will have to be at a time I can be sat in the car while they are open - easier said than done.

[Jockman]

Surprised you got away with it for so long young Shmee.

There is some notification in the Eurowatch blurb which says they reserve the right to withdraw the service if too many false alarms are made.

If you are still under warranty, get it fixed tout de suite

[Shmee]

Jockman said:

There is some notification in the Eurowatch blurb which says they reserve the right to withdraw the service if too many false alarms are made.

As per a phone call recently there is a note on my account that says the car is broken and it is shortly to be looked at so that in theory won't happen.

[rjn21]

I found Eurowatch service to be rubbish. Limited opening hours, long wait times for phone to be answered, clueless people manning their phones, not at all helpful. I gave new V12V back to dealer, for 3 days leaving my phone with the dealer as I had neither the time nor the patience to wait for when Eurowatch found it convenient to effect pairing with bluetooth.

Navtrack offered a much superior customer relation product, although their ADR worked on tags, but they automatically sent new ones out when the old ones were failing (at NO cost - take note AML!!), and were open 24/7 to effect pairing, which took 45 seconds on the phone.

[NigelStn]

That's interesting as I had exceptional service from Eurowatch. They were very patient with me for 3 weeks until I swapped my Iphone 3 for an Iphone 4, phoning me up when I failed to text the correct PIN in time. They then went through the pairing up on the phone with me while I was in the car and I've had no issues since. I guess it all depends on which customer service agent one gets.

[Shmee]

By way of an update for this, I got my new phone connected to the car and since then it has been flawless so I imagine something has been reset on it. However I am yet to try with just a tracker card to see if those are now working fine.

[Jockman]

Shmee said:

By way of an update for this, I got my new phone connected to the car and since then it has been flawless so I imagine something has been reset on it. However I am yet to try with just a tracker card to see if those are now working fine.

Obviously no correlation between your phone or a tracker tag Shmee, but I have had a couple of false alarms in the last week, though these have been promptly fixed by Eurowatch once the pin has been quoted.

Not overly bothered really about the very occasional false alarm as at least I know they are watching it

[Grant3]

Shmee said:

By way of an update for this, I got my new phone connected to the car and since then it has been flawless so I imagine something has been reset on it. However I am yet to try with just a tracker card to see if those are now working fine.

A tag swap (under warranty) sorted the problem on my Roadster.

[3rtt]

How long is the warranty on the tags supplied with a new car?

Cheers,
Ian

[lime1]

3rtt said:

How long is the warranty on the tags supplied with a new car?

Cheers,
Ian

Warranty is for 1st year only. I had a problem with one of my tags similar to above. Got told this can happen as battery life runs down. Problem can occur if you get a tag that's been sitting on the shelf for a while. AM dealer told me that AM recommend that you change the tags every year! Not sure if you then get another 1 year warranty with a new tag. One would assume that you should. No problems with my iPhone 4 as a tag so far.