Car Alarms!!

[yogs71]

Hi is it OK for me to buy an alarm/immobilizer and fit it myself or do i have to get an approved one and get  a professional to fit it to keep the insurance company happy cheers..Yogs

[Mew]

Pretty sure you need to get it installed by an approved fitter to get the Thatcham approval. Having said that, there are some toad alarms on ebay that come with the certificates which you could probably get a local place to sign for some beer tokens, if it's not already been done. 

If you do fit it but don't have the certificate sorted the insurance company may still be alright with it, as i'm sure an alarm is better than no alarm!

[Thom89]

Your best bet is to get a qualified fitter to do the job, unless your an auto electrician! you have to be especially careful on much newer cars, because of the nature of the engine management, and fuel management system wiring, you could do a lot of damage to the ECU.. all for the sakes of a round of drinks! Older cars are not too bad, though you might run into problems with existing alarm/immobilizer wiring, again, unless you know exactly what your doing, I wouldn't bother, shop around for a good price though
Tom

[mk1monkey]

i'm very new at all this so I have been looking at things like insurance for the past few weeks. I was on the phone and I asked the question about the alarms (thatcham and all the rest ) and the bloke told me that the difference in having a brand spanking thatcham expensive one and one bought from the back pages of Max Power. I was very suprised to be told "about £20 mate"

[martinb]

As far as im aware from an insurance point of view a thatcham immobilisor is only approved if fitted by a vsib approved fitter, although i think we would accept it if it was fitted and then taken to a security centre and inspected to insure it was fitted to the required standard and they wrote you a thatcham certificate.

[GolfChick24]

as martin said you can either get it fitted by a fitter or fit yourself then take to a fitting centre and they will check it over and stamp your certificate for it. It differs hugely the discount you can get I rung and asked what it was and they said nothing but ive heard others give discounts.

[Dizzie]

what car is it being fitted to?

[martinb]

as martin said you can either get it fitted by a fitter or fit yourself then take to a fitting centre and they will check it over and stamp your certificate for it. It differs hugely the discount you can get I rung and asked what it was and they said nothing but ive heard others give discounts.

Yeah forgot to put that  , some companies will give a discount whereas others wont even cover cars like a gti at all without thatcham and the discount will vary hugely depending on the company. With us any high group vehicle such as gti, g60, vr6 etc over £2k in value requires thatcham security and the discounts vary from about 7.5% to 12% discount.