In article <C605Fr.CDo@cs.uiuc.edu>, u1815@cs.uiuc.edu (Ronald E Garnett) writes: > Hello auto enthusiasts! >  > I recently had more car mangled (broken into) and decided to > get an alarm installed.  It's a Viper 400 and has a shock > sensor, sensors for each door, ignition cutoff, and automatic > door locks.  I have this same alarm installed in my Syclone.  It works great.  The shock sensor is very sensitive, but much more practical than the motion sensor I have on my other car.  It doesn't trigger if the car is rocked gently by the wind, but any kind of shock sets it off.  Even kicking the tire sets it off.  It works great.  >  > What worries me is the hood and hatch.  If someone could pry  > them up gently enough, then they could bypass the alarm.  The shock sensor is adjustable and there are two cycles on it.  You can adjust it to be sensitive enough that there is no way you could open the hood without setting off the alarm.  Although, I know that you cannot pop the hood on the Syclone without setting off my alarm now, and yet I have had zero (none!) false alarms with this system.  The alarm tells you when you disarm it whether it has been activated in your absence.  I have been able to trace every alarm to it's cause and it was not a false alarm. >  > I'm also wondering how easy it would be for a thief to crawl > underneath the car and cut the battery cable to disable the alarm. >  I guess it would be possible depending on the vehicle.  My Syclone is so tight in the engine compartment that it would be tough to do this.  There are supplemental power supplies you can put on with this Viper alarm, but I don't have one.  I really think that if someone wants my car that bad, the alarm won't keep them from it, even with a supplemental power supply.  > Viper also sells some fancy field disturbance sensor that > supposedly detects people approcahing the car.... >  This is primarily for convertibles.  I have a convertible and have looked at this feature in detail.  Alpine actually makes a better radar unit if you want to get one of these.  It has zones in it that can be shut down independently so that if one side of your car has pedestrian traffic or something else that would trigger an alarm, it shuts down the zone, or rather, pulls it in tighter. I don't see the real benefit to these unless you have a convertible that you leave the top down on.  Avoid the voice alarm that can be added to the radar package.  It talks to people as they walk by.  I saw one installed on a Lotus Esprit.  The kids would taunt it seeing how close they could get before it 'warned' them to get back.  The owner finally disabled it, which defeats the purpose in my mind. >  > I'm interested in the opinions of you netters about these problems > and about the viper in general. >  I am real happy with my Viper.  One other feature I really like is you can tune it to your preferences.  You can have it arm passively or not.  You can disable the chirp for arming/disarming.  You can have it lock/unlock the doors when the alarm is armed/disarmed.    I like these features.  I hate the chirp when the alarm arms/disarms, so mine flashes the lights only.  I like the door lock feature, although I have to be careful to take my keys with me because it doesn't know if you have left your keys in the car when it passively arms and locks the doors.  But, if you are meticulous about taking your keys with you, it takes care of the rest. > The car is an 89 Ford Probe GT that used to be in great shape! >  >  > Ron Garnett >   I looked seriously at the Alpine system too.  It is a real nice system, but more money and it has a motion sensor standard instead of the shock sensor.  The shock sensor is better....and the Viper shock sensor is better (2 cycle) than the optional Alpine one, IMHO.  I think the Viper gives you a lot of good value for the money.  But it isn't absolutely tamperproof.  No system is.  Except maybe the one that James Bond had on his Lotus in For Your Eyes Only.  Anyone know where we can get one of those installed?  Maybe that was what they had in the van in the World Trade Center, huh?>