I ordered my Mustang with the active anti theft system without knowing too much about it. Actually, I knew NOTHING about it.

I'm interested in any experiences you may have had using it.

I know they're going to try and sell me LoJack when I'm making the deal. Did any of you with the active alarm also get LoJack?

 

I did not get the LoJack. I will trust the Active System and go with that. I have some threads on forums where the Active system works well, especially the motion sensors.

 

I opened the windows just a hair on a hot day at a car show.
A vendor dropped a thin sheet of paper (an ad) in the slot.
Everyone at the show heard the alarm.
It takes very little to activate the motion sensor.

 

Is that what that was? I had mine go off at a car show and everyone looked "guilty" near my car, but no one seemed to touch it. I did find a flyer on the passenger seat. I know I bought the anti-theft, but I didn't do any research either. Thought it was a red blinking light!

 

So besides being a car alarm, is there a pager thingy?

Is the sensitivity adjustable?

 

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There is a tilt sensor if the car is lifted by a tow hook.

 

The motion sensors work very well....I had left the windows down, and went in to pick up my son from school. When we came out, he stuck his hand in through the open window, and viola!! All hell broke loose...

Also, if you are after a pager integration, you may want to look into Mobile Guardian. I had it installed instead of Lojack. Satellite tracking of your vehichle at any time. In addition, you can go on line and set speed limits for your car, should someone else be driving it, you can set a kill switch for the car on line, so if it is stolen, as soon as the car is shut off, it will not restart.

And you can set an alert to any device you want to. If my alarm goes off, it alerts my cellphone via text, immediately. Also sends E Mail to both my home and office....Oh, and also sends an immediate alert if your battery is disconnected. I found that out when my car was in for service. As soon as the dealer disconnected the battery, I was alerted....

One time charge, very comparable to Lojack, no monthy charge....

Mike
http://www.mymobileguardian.com/

 

And it gives you a discount on your insurance.

 

Just to be clear, two questions >>

1) Can you deactivate the interior motion sensor? For example, if you have a pet in the car but still want to leave the alarm on.

2) When you park your car, shut the door and walk away, does the alarm activate automatically after 30 seconds or so, or do you HAVE to push the button on the fob to activate the system?

Thanks for the heads-up in advance.

 

1) If you have a vert, you just leave the top down. I think this stinks, because I would really like to have the motion sensor with the top DOWN. But, that's not how it works. If you don't have a vert, then I'm not sure.

2) The alarm is activated by locking the doors. I'm not sure if it is by locking the doors with the keypad, or just locking them in general. But, I'm pretty sure that it is NOT an automatic alarm.

 

Oh, forgot to say. I absolutely love that the mustangs have an active alarm. I haven't done it except for one time before, but I believe the alarm will go off if you try unlocking the doors from the inside (ie-windows are down, therefore to make it easy you don't hit the keypad to unlock them).

This is much different than the SN95's, that just have a flashing "THEFT" light for their PATS system.

 

after a week or two of being parked (not started or driven) I have seen on here where it killed the battery in more than one case.

 

Thanks for all the great info, guys.

 

The owner's manual goes through the alarm in great detail. Here's some tidbits:

Lock the doors with interior powerlock button or with remote = full alarm activated, unless the vert top is down as previously mentioned. (Contrary to what many dealers will tell you, you don't have to hit the remote lock button twice.)

Lock doors with key in outside keyhole = only door, trunk and hood sensors armed. No tilt sensor and no interior motion sensor.

Manually push locking pin down = nothing armed, car still locked.

Remote lock, unlock and trunk work while the car is running but the alarm will not arm.

If you hit the remote lock button and something is open (doors, hood or trunk) the lights will not flash, hit the lock button again and the horn will chirp twice.

Finally, after doing one of the above to arm the alarm, it takes 20 seconds to activate.

Quick story about the alarm. I left my car in the garage with the top down and doors locked. My roomate needed to get the lawn mower out so he needed to move my car back a couple feet. He just reached in and put it in neutral (stick shift) and rolled it back. Once the car hit the bump at the egde of the garage the alarm went off. Scared the heck out of him.

 

Who reads the owner's manual

I'm hoping that the bump at the end of the garage wasn't the garage door.

But, really though, why would it have gone off? Did the tilt sensor make it go off? I didn't think it was that sensitive.

 

I've got a funny story about the motion sensor.
Even though the car is parked in a locked garage, I always arm the alarm anyway. One night, the dang alarm kept going off intermittently. I'd check the garage, see nothing wrong and re-set the alarm. This happened five times before I gave up and didn't set the alarm. Found the culprit the following morning when I got in the car. There was a medium sized moth flying around. Evidently the motion from the moth was enough to trip the alarm.

Now I check for insects, before I button up for the night.

 

I don't know what people are saying about the car sitting with the alarm on and it killing the battery, I've left for over a week at a time ( and now just recently returned from 2.5 weeks of Mustang inactivity) and the car cranked up just fine.

Also, if I turn the alarm on with the windows down, walking within 2 feet of the open windows will set off the alarm

I also have Guidepoint GPS recovery, in case it does get stolen...this also adds up to more discounts on the insurance. I was considering LoJack, but in Arizona, LoJack only works in the Flagstaff area...the GPS system works anywhere in North America

 

The bump is a 2 inch ridge to allow the door to seal.

It doesn't take much to set off the tilt sensor. Set the alarm and start jacking the car up. It will go off in just 2 or 3 pumps on the jack. Long before the tires are off the ground.

 

I have Guidepoint (GPS..kindof an unfair acronym) (www.gudiepointsystems.com) also. No need to buy it from the dealer. The price will be the same or higher from them. Just find the shop that does the install for the dealer, and buy it from them direct.
I don't think it has as many options as Mobile Guardian described above, but one or the other may not be carried in your area by the shops. I believe they are also both transferrable to future vehicles, if you ever depart ways (for some insane reason) with you Stang.

One other thing, I believe another benefit of MG over GPS is that GPS is a yearly subscription and it is anywhere from $99 to $400 depending on services you want. I am paying $199 per year for their T2 plan, its targeted at businesses/fleets.

 

That's good to know I kept forgetting to check in the manual and I had problems with the active alarm when I was on a ferry a couple times last summer. I kept getting paged to check on the car, I eventually had to unlock it and leave it. Not like it was going anywhere, heh.

Other than getting used to how it works the system works pretty well.