V8Vantage Tracker - how does it work? Can it be re-activated

[marknash99]

Hi Guys

Just sorting out my insurance for the car when I pick it up next week. Current insurer/broker (Sky Insurance) have just said my current insurer want the tracker operational. I know when I looked at the car it had two tracker cards with it. How does this system work? Do you have to pay an annual fee of some sort? Do they need activating?

Price wise I'm pleased, only an extra £67 to take me the 4 months to renewal. This is from a 2010 Jag XF valued at £19k. That price included their £30 admin fee so less than a tenner a month extra

[bogie]

Yeah you should just be able to ring up the tracker provider and re-enable it

[BravoV8V]

If it is the AM tracker, it will be £250 a year. There is a small discount if you buy multiple years but there is certainly no '£350 for the lifetime of the vehicle' type deal.

I found that it was next to useless. Lots of calls if, for example, my 'phone wasn't near me when I started the car. But no calls when the car was taken away on the back of a covered trailer (ie effectively stolen).

It will be much cheaper to find an insurer who doesn't require a tracker (ie Lockton).

[bogie]

The last time I remember the lifetime deal was on in 2007, I did get a £300 life of ownership deal from tracker back then ...

[davek_964]

bogie said:

The last time I remember the lifetime deal was on in 2007, I did get a £300 life of ownership deal from tracker back then ...

Was that the AM one though? Early Vantages were Tracker Horizon, so you could (and still can) get lifetime cover.

Actually, I had Horizon on my 996 turbo. I was always dubious it really worked because I never told them I was getting on Eurotunnel or anything like that. But - when I sold the car (and did tell them I wanted to terminate the cover, and that the car would be going on a transporter later that day) - I did get a call from them about unexpected movement about 30 mins after the transporter left.

I know my V8 has Horizon but I've not decided whether to activate it or not. I asked my insurers (Chaucer through Pace Ward) what the discount would be if I did - they said : Since we didn't ask for it, we won't give you any discount!

[bogie]

Mine was pre the factory one, so yeah its tracker Horizon. To be honest, forgot all about it until last month, had the car picked up for a service and it went off, so it all still works fine. Well enough to keep the insurers happy. Not sure at sub £30k value it even needs one now...

[Jonsv8]

How old is the car as they changed in 2013?

[V8V Pete]

Unless you can get a very significant discount on your insurance by having it activated then why bother? It costs you £250 a year to insure your insurance company against a total loss - go figure!

There are several companies out there that don't insist on it and it doesn't affect the premium significantly.

[rog007]

V8V Pete said:

Unless you can get a very significant discount on your insurance by having it activated then why bother? It costs you £250 a year to insure your insurance company against a total loss - go figure!

There are several companies out there that don't insist on it and it doesn't affect the premium significantly.

Agree. Haven't enabled mine. And don't really want it back if it gets nicked and ragged!

[JACK6284]

Originally I had the Eurowatch one on my V12 which failed and it stranded me at the pub. I now have the Cobra but its not that good and sends false alarms to my phone!

Edited by JACK6284 on Friday 19th June 08:42

[TrackaPhone]

marknash99 said:

Hi Guys

Just sorting out my insurance for the car when I pick it up next week. Current insurer/broker (Sky Insurance) have just said my current insurer want the tracker operational. I know when I looked at the car it had two tracker cards with it. How does this system work? Do you have to pay an annual fee of some sort? Do they need activating?

Price wise I'm pleased, only an extra £67 to take me the 4 months to renewal. This is from a 2010 Jag XF valued at £19k. That price included their £30 admin fee so less than a tenner a month extra

Hello Mark,

The System you have in your car was manufactured by Autotech, who I think are no longer supporting the device. The monitoring is done by Eurowatch who are part of the Trafficmaster group of companies. The tags are called ADR tags or Automatic Driver Recognition, These should be kept with you whenever you drive the vehicle, but for obvious reasons not left in the vehicle. These tags have caused some owners some problems, although there is the option of Bluetooth pairing the tracker to your phone as well. The unit is tied into the CAN bus of the car, so upon a signal from the alarm response centre, the car will no longer start. When the ignition is turned on, the tracker looks for the tags and if it doesn't see them automatically puts an electronic geofence around the vehicle, some 100M. If this geofence is broken then an alarm is sent to the response centre and a call goes into the driver and they ask if you are aware of unauthorised movement. Anyway, that is how it should work in practice.....

More recently, Aston have moved across to the Cobra tracking system (Vodafone owned) which as the Autotech/Eurowatch system is a CAT 5 unit (https://www.thatcham.org/files/pdf/Definition_of_Security_Categories.pdf), whereas the earlier Tracker Horizon was a CAT 7. If your vehicle is under the manufacturers warranty then I believe that should then be changed to a Cobra should your Eurowatch go faulty. If, however, it is out of warranty the Cobra tracker is around £1100+fitting.

I can, of course offer a suitable alternative and also transfer any subscriptions paid to Eurowatch to a new CAT 5 tracker........

All the best,

James