Alarm Immobiliser Info Req

What do people think about the Datatool System 3 package? I've seen what it
says on the web site about it but personal experience is better than
corporate PR.
Is it any good?
Would you recommend it?

Info appreciated.

 

Nimrod wrote

It is shite. All the bike alarms are shite. They do not stop bikes
getting nicked and they are a source nothing but frustration for their
owners.

As a means to reduce your insurance premium there is no better on the
market.

 

not exactly what I was expecting but thanks.

 

steve auvache says...

Well said. Couldn't have put it better myself.

If you insist on having an alarm, don't buy a fucking Datatool.

 

<shrug> I had no real problems with mine.

The system 3 was actually a pleasure to use, but there you go.

 

Sometime around Thu, 17 Mar 2005 20:44:00 +0000, dwb babbled on about:

Same here, no issues at all.

 

Hey Nimrod,

I've got a Datatool system 3 on my Bandit and haven't had any problems so
far. No problems with falsing - bearing in ming the bike's parked next to a
bloody great common which backs on to the sea (so quite windy). Fitted it
myself no problems. Only annoyance is that it autoarms after 30 secs which
can be a pain when locking the bike up - but i think there is a way to
prevent the movement sensors autoarming - must look in to that

Hope this helps

Dan Ricketts

 

System 3 (and the new System 4) are not shit.

So you could say perhaps they aren't that shit a company - they improve the
faults?

 

the most helpful reply I've had. - many thanks.

 

Apart from some people just saying they're ok all I saw were some people
saying " they're shit and the company is shit" with nothing else to back up
their point. The helpful reply was one from someone who took the time to
give me a personal opinion of his experience. Your reply falls into that
middle category and, accordingly, carries as much weight with me.

 

I've got a system 3, i had to for ins co purposes. It is quite simple
to use although i would prefer not to have it. Make sure that you carry
a supply of spare fuses for when your mates sit on the bike and push the
starter with alarm armed. My brother had a Meta alarm which was utter
shite and fucked up regularly stranding him, although it would appear
that a lot of the prolems with alarms come from fitting errors. From
personal experience if you must get an alarm then the system 3 is as
good as any others.

--
Martin:
"For a minute there, you bored me to death."
VTR1000 Firestorm
TDR250 http://ukrm.net/BIKES/Yamaha/tdr250.html
martin dot smith nine zero three at ntlworld dot com

 

Nimrod says...

OK, let me put it this way. I have around 120 bike dealers as customers
of mine. On my travels I come across a lot of people who stock Datatool,
and their main reason for doing so is profit, not the fact that they are
any better than anyone else's alarm. They all tell me they get plenty of
Datatool problems, more so than any other alarms. So, with the thought
of buying a new bike that may need an alarm fitting for insurance
purposes I did some research, and I asked the blokes who'd know about
alarm breakdowns, namely RAC and AA patrolmen. The dealer's view is that
if the alarm plays up, they don't usually have to bother with the
recovery because the bike is normally too far away, the AA or RAC do the
repair or they drag it back to the dealer for a new board to be fitted
at Datatool or the customer's expense. Keeps the workshop busy and they
get a payout from the supplier.

Without exception, they all told me to avoid Datatool alarms and buy a
Meta 357. Datatool give them more problems than any other make and the
company are not helpful. Meta give no big problems and the company are
helpful in the extreme if they do. One put it another way. VW make some
of the most reliable cars on the road, they rarely have electrical
problems, the wiring looms and a fair amount of the electrical systems
on VWs are made by Meta.

I have a Datatool alarm fitted to my bike, unfortunately it was on the
bike when I bought it. I will be bypassing the immobilisation circuit
and when the alarm goes tits up, which it inevitably will, it'll end up
in a hedge somewhere. I've already made a mental note of where
everything is connected into the bike's wiring. I will then fit a Meta
357.

 

Now that's what I call informed advice. Many thanks.

 

I do as well.

Need some scissors, btw?

 

most alarm problems are the result of poor installation (and ham fisted
bikers having a tinker with it afterwoulds)

the data tool on my bike has not let me down yet infact all the alarm
systems that i have had installed on all of my vehicles have been supplied
by datatool parent company non have ever failed .

if and when you have the alarm installed make sure all connections are
soldered the unit is placed away from any source of heat and they apply
heat shrink over any connections they have made , adopting the above will
prevent 99% of alarm problems

 

I can't disagree with this, on the basis of personal experience and
from listening to the experiences of several others.

However ... I'm not so sure about the non-waterproofness, mind. From
the moment I saw the position of the installed Veto Evo on the RF, I
anticipated bother. It was cable-tied to the outside of the subframe
rail, within the (let's face it commodious is an understatement)
tailpiece but directly over the sidewall of the rear tyre therefore
and exposed to all the shit in the world.

It took eight months to fail. It had been installed at least a couple
of years by then, but it had only been annoying /me/ for eight months
(the self-arming and forgetting while fuelling thing, mainly). It
died at the BMF, in the pissing rain. It died in Service mode, which
meant it stood in the middle of the biggest open space I could find,
but it still pissed off an awful lot of people as it beeped every
thirty seconds right through the night.

The next day it appeared to sort itself out - until I came to go home.
Then it refused to let the bike start. Fortunately there is a strong
RAC presence at the BMF and a short push away was their shed. I
wasn't alone - when I arrived (at 5:30pm on the closing day of the
show) three bikes were already being looked at: all of them had
Datatool alarm problems.

Two, like mine, were dead. A week-old Triumph had acquired permanent
hazard warning lights that the factory had not fitted. A fourth
sweating biker hove into view pushing a DragStar that had failed a
mile down the road - just cut dead and refused to restart.

After a short wait and some very informative (expletives deleted)
conversation with the three RAC teams sorting this situation out, it
transpired that out of the couple of hundred callouts that weekend,
some two-thirds were to alarm malfunctions - nearly every one a
Datatool and those that weren't were traced to bad bike batteries,
discharged alarm fob batteries or physical damage to the alarm or its
wiring.
The RAC blokes were unanimous in their condemnation of
Datatool products of every iteration. They were nigh-on unanimous in
recommending the Meta alternative, if you absolutely *have* to fit an
alarm incorporating an immobiliser.

Anyway, I digress.

My alarm was checked and tested and found to have failed. The shed we
were all in was full of the sound of wailing alarm sirens, only
slightly muffled by wedging RAC caps and scarves against them to
minimise discomfort. I asked the nice man looking at mine to cut the
alarm out of the loom - after freeing the box and removing the battery
to shut the bloody thing up.

My Veto Evo was duly cut out, but I decided to take it home with me
for further examination, rather than lobbing it against the wall to
land in the pile of near-identical but smashed black boxes at the end
of the shed.

On close examination the box was plastered in road shit - mud, sandy
grit and oily particles as one might expect. The seal where the box
comes apart was intact and the inside was completely dry and clean.
The circuit board bore no evidence of ever having been wet - no shit,
no corrosion, no marks whatsoever. This is despite doing ~5,000 miles
through the winter in my ownership, and providing daily commuter
transport for the previous owner for a couple of years.

To summarise - Datatool alarms are not as good as you might want,
especially for the money. They are annoying (the self-arming), they
certainly appear to be unreliable and the backup from the factory is
not as good as you'd like for a 300 quid product. Mine was definitely
waterproof, but that didn't stop it fucking up an a most irritation
fashion.

If you /have/ to have an alarm/immobiliser fitted for insurance
purposes, then you have to have one. I certainly wouldn't have a
Datatool product - I'd go for the (personally, not corporately)
recommended Meta 357. I'm aware of issues with Spyball products in
similar vein to Datatool, but have no personal experience of these and
wouldn't want it either TYVM.

Remember - there's nothing to stop you defeating the immobiliser
yourself once you have the certificate of alarm fitment to satisfy the
InsCo. If found to be disconnected when recovered (not that many
bikes are recovered) then "the thieves must have done it". Come to
that, there's fuckall to stop you acquiring a fitting certificate
without having the alarm anywhere near your bike, which I find
preferable in the extreme. YMMV, of course.

 

Then again, I've had three for a combined period of 21 years, and the
only problem I've had was the waterlogged one fitted to the Wing: and
the tech chap came out that day[1] and fitted a new circuit board.
Even then, it still worked - the only issue was the constant hazards
and siren all the way back from a rained off cricket match, down the
M1 in a biblical quality rainstorm. May 97, iirc.

[1] Phoned up when I arrived home, at around 3pm. New circuit board
was in by 5:30. It's still there.

 

thanks to all for the personal experiences of various alarms - certainly
food for though.

 

snip

the new range of data tool alarms has programmable functions such as auto
alarm disable they just need programming in , unfortunately most installers
don't bother asking the punter what they want they just set everything to
default installation

 

Unfortunately, programmable functions do not improve reliability.