Stolen Vehicle Tracking vs Vehicle Tracking

What’s the difference?

Vehicle Tracking

General vehicle tracking is the use of a telematics device to provide the owner of a particular vehicle or asset information regarding its location, provide ignition status data and include basic alerts. These are most often used for fleets of low value vehicles or plant equipment when the location data and not the ability to recover the vehicle after a theft is of most importance to them.

However, these devices are generally installed in easy to find locations as they are not intended for stolen vehicle recovery like there covertly installed counterparts. The devices themselves are normally of poor build quality and reliability and are most often sourced from low quality suppliers where they undergo minimal quality checks if any before being fitted to a vehicle. This often results in a short lifespan, poor reliability and no way of fixing or replacing the unit under any sort of warranty.

The devices we’re talking about here are ones you can simply buy just by typing in ‘car tracking system’ into Google or Amazon and finding one for between £40-80 and possibly installing it yourself.

You can however find professional and well-built systems for general vehicle tracking and location information from several manufacturers. Most of the brands dealing in stolen vehicle tracking also offer the same system or tracking unit just without the secure control centre and monitoring features. These systems are labelled as self-monitored systems, as such you’ll generally receive simple push notifications through to an app for any alerts generated by the system, but you won’t receive phone calls from a monitoring centre, nor will you receive professional theft assistance in the event your vehicle is stolen. You of course will need to manually report the theft and then speak to the police yourself, and as we’ve already discussed above, that’s not ideal in the event your vehicle has been stolen as response speed is key for a chance of successful recovery.

Stolen Vehicle Tracking

Specialist stolen vehicle tracking systems are professionally backed devices offering far more in terms of functionality, reliability and dedicated theft response over your average vehicle tracking system. The main difference is that they are connected to a 24/7/365 secure control centre where any alerts from the device or customer trigger a response from an actual person, they will then link into and liaise with the relevant police force to provide information such as speed, direction and location data regarding the stolen vehicle.

With general vehicle tracking devices, if a member of the public reported a theft to the police and then tried to give them location, direction or any other data relating to the stolen vehicles live position, they wouldn’t or would generally be slow to respond. This is because the information is coming from a random source rather than a verified, vetted and professional one. The secure control centres that are connected to these stolen vehicle tracking systems have direct lines into police control rooms and are verified as professional sources of information regarding live theft events and so encourage fast and confident responses from police forces.

Police forces will react quickly to such events especially with such detailed information on the vehicles whereabouts from the tracking systems monitoring centre. They also react with confidence if the likely hood of their efforts will end in a conviction, in which live tracking of the criminal’s location provides a good chance.

One important thing to note is the fact that stolen vehicle tracking/recovery systems are Thatcham and Insurance approved products which you can find more about here.

Installation Standards

Perhaps one of biggest differences between standard vehicle tracking and stolen vehicle tracking systems is the way they are installed.

Your average vehicle tracking system more commonly known as self-monitored or fleet tracking devices are installed for particular applications. These systems are for customers looking to add the functionality to track their vehicles or fleets of vehicles in real-time, record journeys and receive other useful data from the device. So they’re not being fitted with the vehicles theft or recovery in mind, they are being fitted for everyday business requirements.

As such the installation of the system is geared more toward being simple, quick and easy to fit, they are also much cheaper to purchase so installers earn less money for their installation. Customers of these types of systems tend also to have the systems removed and refitted to different vehicles far more frequently and therefore spending excessive time in covert fitment is neither cost effective for the installer nor requested by the customer. Your average vehicle tracking system is installed to provide efficient fitment and correct functionality and not with the intension of recovering the vehicle in the event of theft.

That’s what stolen vehicle tracking systems are for, you pay a higher price for the added functionality such as Thatcham certification, 24/7 monitoring and also higher quality installation standards.

However, it must be said that it’s not always the case that your normal vehicle tracking is installed any different from a stolen vehicle tracking system. After all, many installers fit both types of systems and therefore may install much the same and even use the same vehicle wiring to power them. Although for the most part, you will receive higher standards of installation quality and covertness from a stolen vehicle tracking system as you are paying for that service and the intension of the system being fitted for security surrounding theft. The higher price paid for the system of which the installer is also paid more enables more time for finessing of the installation which ultimately ensures a more covert, higher quality installation at all levels.

For more information regarding the installation of stolen vehicle tracking system please see our installation quality topic in the guide section.