xaznperswaesonx

please give me your opinions about what you have. I'm looking at either one mainly the higher model ones becuase i can get those @ wholesale cost.

elduderino

Alarms cost nothing... it's the installation that costs more than the gear when it's done right.

I have not owned Compustar... you take no risks with Directed except a crappy manual (but NO ONE has a good OM anymore, except MAYBE Alpine). I like the Clifford 2-way remote best of all for looks.

I have heard good and bad about Compustar... the bad is about reliability. Not my personal experience, but feedback from a good installer.

Remember that security is the install, not the product.

xaznperswaesonx

Understood. I just don't want to get an alarm that is inferior in quality and workmanship. I get free install too .. i just pay for parts. I had a compustar ss2w on my teg, that alarm saved my car! but i'm kinda not happy with the result becuase it took a while before the remote recieve the signal from the car telling me that someone was breaking into it. It could be the remote had a low battery and had to go through concrete wall ....

And compustar's stated range have been reduced in their new updated model. Before was a 1.25 mile with no obstruction.. now it's like .75 to 1 mile with no obstruction.

Bass Mechanic

the compustar is a total POS the transmitter box is a huge eye sore. the remote is a POS because the silver paint rubs off and it looks like crap.
i have not used the DEI but if you want my honest opinion i used to install DEI for years, i would never have ever suggested you buy anything else.
however in the last many years i have grown pretty fond and have installed several Autopage alarms and personally i think they are better than DEI

xaznperswaesonx

BM .. so are you saying you suggest DEI? and Autopage .. want to give some personal experience wtih it?

elduderino

Oh, hell, buy the DEI. That way at least you get some patented software features created by some brilliant-yet-self-effacing guy...

dabuda

i have the compustar 2WSS-A. the range is not 6000 feet like they claim. it's more like 1/2 mile only. it also doesnt go thru bulidings very well. overall i'm not satisfied with it and the next time i need an alarm installed i'll just get a basic one with a battery powered backup.

yuhoo22

I'll let you know next friday, I am having a Clifford RS 3.5 installed then. (alarm and remote start)

Bass Mechanic

i am saying if it were my money it would be the autopage 855 LCD verses the DEI
i can get either at wholesale but 1. the auto page is less expensive and 2. has more features than the DEI

as for personal experience i havnt tried ther DEI Responder yet. but i have seen it. the auto page is better in the sence its easier to operate and understand.
also for years i have never liked DEI's way of a starter interrupt. if the alarm looses power it allows the car to be started.

the better alarms wont allow that to happen, it's a moot point if you have a transponder system from the factory though now days.

as for the range question. the compustar alarms have limited range, probly the worst in the bunch. however i was told by my distributer that under the silver sticker on the side of the transmitting unit there is a resistor you can cut that will almost 2x the distance. in areas outside the US the FCC regulations arent as stiff so they had to reduce the range of the unit for the US. i never tried cutting that resistor to see it was any better because the guy that had the unit traded to the autopage and never looked back for all the other reasons i mentioned about it.

as for the range on the auto page. i can say from personal experience the car would start from the remote at easily 1/4 mile away which was through my resedential neighborhood and straight line of sight would have been through several houses. i was also standing on the other side of a hill.
i would guess you might get 3/4 mile in optimal conditions. keep in mind i have never seen any alarm go much more than 1/2 the distance the manufacturter claims in normal day to day use.

if your getting an alarm with 2 way paging ability to alert you. i would say if your doing that as peice of mind great, but dont expect it to go through movie theater walls unless your car is parked literally outside the theater behind the wall with the screen.
im most situations the pager will work well enough that if you are close enough to actually catch the theif on foot it will probly go off and alert you. if your in the mall and at a dead heat run to your car takes you more than 3-4 minutes it probly doesnt matter much because by then your shit will be jacked by the time you get there anyway.
and with that i would ask you this. what do you plan to do once you arrive on the scene? if you catch a theif and beat the crap out of them its more likely you would get charged with assult anyway.
our laws suck!
my .02

elduderino

Having actually been in too many product development meetings about this idea, let's talk about it for a minute.

If you have normally-open starter kill, then the alarm losing power means that you can't start the car. The alarm starter kill relay then has to be physically unwired from the car to allow starting (which SHOULD be hard, since it should be hard to find due to stealthy installation). So your car won't start if the alarm brain pops a fuse (remember, this can happen when jump-starting a car), or the starter kill or power wire comes loose, or the alarm brain just dies for some reason, or is unplugged by a thief.

If you have normally-closed starter kill, if your alarm loses power, then the starter kill drops out and allows the car to start.

If your alarm wiring and fuse is hard to find and well disguised as factory wiring...

If your starter kill relay requires lots of disassembly in order to find and remove...

If you bought a backup battery like I hope you did...

Which kind would you rather have?


BTW, whenever a car can't start, the owner thinks it's the alarm. Left the headlights on and have a dead battery ? Alarm. No seat belt inserted in an 80's Jetta? Must be the alarm. Starter won't engage even with the starter solenoid powered directly off of the B+ terminal with a wire? Alarm. (How do I know this? Guess who took their calls when their car wouldn't start.)

If a car is getting hotwired and the StK relay is right there at the steering column like it is in 90% of the installs out there, no matter what kind it is, it will be removed by the thieves and thus be ineffective.

If there is a power fuse out at the battery for the alarm that is easy to pull (thanks, old-school Clifford!) the thief has time to remove the StK relay without the alarm going off.

So DEI decided to use the NC starter kill, thus placing the top levels of security of the starter kill relay with the install shop and the salesperson. After all, the BU battery helps a lot, and better installation helps a lot, but N.O. starter kill relays are a huge pain in the ass.

One of the reasons that DEI offers the $1K Theft Protection Guarantee was to overcome this attitude about NO vs NC Starter Kill.

So, I understand why VSE and Alpine and Code and the rest had N.O. starter kill relays... but I think that I'd rather have a "Fail-Safe" (always wondered how DEI got that trademark) NC starter kill and a well-hidden install and a backup battery than a N.O starter kill and know that someday my car might not start, and it could be the alarm causing the problem.

Good thing it's a moot point though...: )

Bass Mechanic

i still dont like DEI normally closed starter kill setups. sure the alarm gets blamed for the dead battery. but what good is it if they just cut the power to the alarm at the battery, or find the brain and unhook it?
sure install is the secrit. IMO the only real way to install an alarm right is to install it under the carpet.
its hard to find and takes a lot of work to get to especially if you put it under the seat and carpet.
and lets be honest here for a minute. as an installer in my installation days you would have to pay me a lot of money to go through that much effort to install it. and like 99% of the alarms installed by most shops usually if i could stuff it in the chassis behind the kick panel i would, but most of the time it goes high in the dash. any theif is going to find it within seconds anyway.
besides we all know that if the theif wants your car bad enough he can jack it on a flatbed truck. IMO i only bought and installed alarms on my own cars for the small amount of a deterrant it has to a semi unprofessional theif and for the convienience features of keyless and trunk release.
if you think any alarm is going to stop a theif no matter how good the install your only kidding yourself.
if you want my opinion i used to install what i belive to be one of the best theft deterrant systems yet invented. and for a simple handfull of parts costing less than 25 bucks.
i installed one on my father in laws new ford F-550. he didnt want to take a chance of someone driving off with the tow vehicle of their 18,000 lb 5th wheel while sleeping in it.
so i installed my little secrit.

it is a simple relay and magnetic reed switch hidden in the cab of the truck under a plastic panel that only he knows the location of.
when you turn the car on with the key the dash and all ignition circuits are totally dead untill you wave a magnet in just the right hidden location and TADA! the dash lights up and you can crank it.
simple but effective. not many theifs know to carry a (special key) magnet with them let alone are going to spend that much time trying to figure out why the engine wont start.
even if they knw it needed a magnet to start it they would spend hours trying to figure out where to position the magnet to get the system to work. all the while if they didnt know they had to leave the ignition on to locate it.
even if they jack the column up and force the ignition switch they will probly think they just didnt get the ignition switch to operate correctly.
again stealth of the install is critical. i tapped the ignition in a location they would never look and wire loomed it up to look just like factory.
i even installed an override switch hidden above the glovebox that can't be seen but can be reached if you know where to stick your fingers and feel for it. this way when he takes it in to the dealer for service he can override the system with the flick of that switch and everything works as normal. (also incase of failure he doesnt get stranded.)
this is a perfect example of why install is so critical. and this little idea i came up with IMO is better than an alarm for keeping the car where you parked it. because without any trace of an alarm to begin with a theif would never know that there was any security measures installed to locate and disable.
you install an alarm a theif knows exactly what to look for and to follow the wires right to the starter kill relay to disable it no matter how well you hid it. in fact you dont even need to find it. all you have to do is find the 2 wires leading to it and short them out. or if the car is a 5 speed you can push start it.
with my idea push starting the car wont even work. you would have no choice to either spend quite a while disecting the interior or tracing wires or just get a tow truck.

elduderino

Right... ignition kill.

So if something goes wrong, the car dies as the owner is driving down the road?

As a trick to do in your car, fine. As a commercial product to sell to others from a store, in a litigious age, would your product have ignition kill?

Mine sure as hell wouldn't.

There are ways to do starter kill as stealthily as your ignition kill, so I guess what that shows is that installation is more important than approach (NC, NO, StK, IgK).

But I can't recommend to anyone that they ever get ignition kill, cause I know what the risks are and I refuse to take them (or be responsible for them). Of course, I also won't recommend remote start with a magnet wire-tied to the shifter lever, so I guess there's a difference in approach here.

(I might do it for myself, but recommending it to the general population on a forum is kinda like that turkey-deep-fryer maker in the South who had to start asking phone buyers whether they lived in a house or an apartment, because Manhattan apartment dwellers have started fires deep-frying turkeys in their living room...)

To me, there's a difference between being able to figure out how to do something, and figuring out a method that is reliable enough to recommend to others. I know how to do all that shit, but that doesn't make it a good idea.

Oh, and one of my favorite conversations went like this:

How do I do ignition kill?

Well, you don't do ignition kill with that alarm - that comes with starter kill.

Right... but I want to do ignition kill on this car. How do I do it?

Wait a minute... you know how to do starter kill, right?

Of course I do!

But you need us to help you with ignition kill.

Yeah, help me out.

Ok, here goes... In this company's opinion, it's a bad idea to do ignition kill... but if you need me to explain to you how to do ignition kill, you really shouldn't do it.

Bass Mechanic

who said anything about wire tieing a magnet to a shift lever? where did that come from?
if your referring to what i said in another thread about rigging up a neutral safty device to prevent a manuel car from starting you better go back and re read that post. your putting words in my mouth.
what i did do and have done is by using a magnet and reed switch permenantly affixed to the shift linkage workes very well. and i might add is compleatly safe even if the magnet fell off it still wouldnt start. or if the switch malfunctioned it still wouldnt start. the ebrake has to be applied also or it wont start.
i dont wire tie shit like that you make it sound like i go out of my way to try to kill people or somthing.

acuratsx03

^^^ thats odd, i do recall reading about someone who did that with the magnet and the shift lever... dont remember where though