Vangauardian alarm

[Wilson61]

One of my neighbours had his brand new Hi Lux stolen off his driveway house all camerad up but they weren't bothered about that, neighbour got it all on camera and to add insult to injury they backed his Hi Lux off the drive, then got out and stuck two fingers up at the camera and laughed.
Police were not interested so what's one to do.
I've just fitted a couple of the Vangauardian alarms on driver and passenger door of my T6 hopefully as a deterrent they are very loud and go off as soon as you try the door handles and there service was brilliant ordered day before Christmas eve and ordered the colour coded cover plates, they rang me to say the cover plates would be sent out straight after Christmas when the spray company starts back but in the meantime would send the standard cover plates by next day delivery soy van would be protected over Christmas, they arrived next day as promised on Christmas eve, only took about half hour to fit both and will probably order one for the side door and rear tailgate after Christmas

 

[Sasquatch]

Police were not interested so what's one to do.

There's a significant difference between being "not interested" and having no evidence upon which to progress an investigation. CCTV is rendered useless as a detection tool the moment they mask up, and unless they've left some evidence at the scene thats the end of that. Almost certainly itll be on false plate within minutes of the theft to avoid being tracked on ANPR. They're coppers, not soothsayers.

It's a shame the owner was "not interested" in taking more measures to secure his property than he did, but it's never them to blame and always somehow the dibble's fault.

Get yourself a Disklok - its the best visual deterrent the best practical defence. In 7 years as a sergeant on an autocrime team we never came across a single vehicle successfully taken with such device, and more than once we'd recover CCTV which showed them eyeball the lock, shake their heads, and head on up the road to steal something else.

 

[Wilson61]

Already got a Disklok on mine the bright yellow one, and locked behind a six foot steel gate and camera, so without being paranoid, I saw Vangauardian as an extra precaution as this goes off as a warning, just by trying the door handle and if they persist goes into full alarm mode hopefully scaring them off before they start damaging the doors trying to gain access.

 

[Sasquatch]

Find an alarm with a proximity function. It'd be nice if it alerted you before they could even touch it.

Even better, an IR sensor inside the gate, alerting you before they even get far into the premises, although that is obviously only any use when the vehicle is home.

But ultimately they're most concerned with anything that physically prevents them taking it, and being diligent you've already got that base nicely covered. Anything taht merely makes a noise won't be a major deterrent - if they think they can start it swiftly they'll merrily drive it away with an alarm sounding and deal with out of the way somewhere. The alarms best function is to alert you rather than to deter properly organised gangs such as this.

I don't know your particular van but a lot of T6's and most 6.1's are fitted with a factory alarm that is actually quite decent (it has Thatcham I approval.)

CCTV is great for reassurance purposes, but is all but useless as a detection tool, being as it is easily defeated by a hood or a scarf. Johnny scumbag knows this, hence their cheeky little bit of fun at your neighbours camera. Divide up the cost of the cameras by the annual number of detections and the average crime detected by camera costs a little under £1,000,000, which is hardly useful at all.