Alarm Advice Please

I know half of the ppl on here will say dont get one. but i want one for my new bike and need one for the insurance,

I have the opion of the latest Datatool S4 and ill probably add the snitcher or the latest meta alarm

http://www.bikesecure.co.uk/pages/alarm_meta.html

http://www.bikesecure.co.uk/pages/ride_framed.html

any advice would be appreciated... the meta won ride surveys and tests but i like the idea of the extra snitcher on the datatool at another ?100!!

any thoughts appreciated.

Cheers

Alex

Find another insurance company. The extra premium will be cheaper than the cost of an approved alarm. Personally I hate the things, they're a complete and utter waste of time and money. No-one takes the blindest bit of notice of who's tampering with the bike and they're quite happy to let thieves take it as long as they take the bloody awful noise with them. Then there's the ongoing reliability problems.

Save your money

If you've been the victim of bike theft you tend to take precautions. If my CBR was alarmed when it was stolen (along with another bike back in 92) when the a-holes broke into the garage, somone in the house may have woken in time to stop/disturb the pondlife.

I would go for an alarm every time, just cos some others may ignore the noise, you may not! Also some of the public may remember what the gits looked like. If you were a thief and had the choice of bringing attention to yourself to nick a bike or go for one next to it without an alarm what would you do? When parked up for the night, use other measures as well, disc lock/chain/big cable etc to something that doed not move.

It's your bike, it's you're choice. Meta and Datatool are both good makes.

Originally Posted by Lozzo

Find another insurance company. The extra premium will be cheaper than the cost of an approved alarm. Personally I hate the things, they're a complete and utter waste of time and money. No-one takes the blindest bit of notice of who's tampering with the bike and they're quite happy to let thieves take it as long as they take the bloody awful noise with them. Then there's the ongoing reliability problems.

Save your money

I'd agree with that. Got a Datatool 3 (i think) on mine and its a pain in the bum. Wierd how the alarm makes so much of a difference to your policy though? I've never even told my insurers mine has an alarm on it as i didnt know at the time of insuring it, I pay peanuts anyway so assume it'd save me a tenner or something - not worth the phone call.

Reading your post again though, you seem set on an alarm so i'll say my beef with the Datatool -

The self arming thing is really annoying, i'd be happy if it just auto armed the immob only, but arming the alarm and tilt every time you switch off the bike is too much. Looking at the instructions there may be a way to stop this but the wierd complicated procedures you have to go through for setting up stuff like the PIN etc put you off fiddling with it to change settings.

The buttons on the key fob are too alike and the same colour as the fob, its hard to differentiate between then in low light etc and they dont have a positive 'press' feel.

The service mode beeps every few seconds at you as a standard 'feature' which is annoying if you have to use it for any reason.

I seem to set it off every time i turn on the bike no matter what buttons i've pressed beforehand.

The tilt is annoying as i have to wheel my bike a distance to get to the road and it seems to sometimes just re-enable itself half way through.

So if looking at an alarm, find one that doesnt do any of the above and you'll be ok. Looking at the Meta in your link it seems it can just auto enable the immob only. that'd be good.

Im getting a System 4 soon.

Whats an extra snitcher?

Originally Posted by ThEGr33k

Im getting a System 4 soon.

Whats an extra snitcher?

Them little ball things with wings that you play quidditch with.

Originally Posted by ThEGr33k

Im getting a System 4 soon.

Whats an extra snitcher?

From i have read on the website, its a bolt on extra that texts your mobile when the bike is moved and if you have a low battery etc, you can then call the system and activate immob, alarm, indicators as you choose... its another ?100 but im thinking about it... it also alows the bike to be tracked under the GSM network but it is not a tracker nor is ti insurance approved.

ill do soem more reading and have a thought!!

I've got datatool system 3. Wait till you go on holiday, it will eat your battery alive, then it will hold on to the corpse and never let you take it off the bike!

Originally Posted by N8te rider

I've got datatool system 3. Wait till you go on holiday, it will eat your battery alive, then it will hold on to the corpse and never let you take it off the bike!

When I removed the defunct Datatool System 3 from my silver SV I had to buy a new wiring loom because the fitters had cut huge chunks out of the original. I can't abide alarms, and in particular Datatool ones.