woke up this morning to an egg accross my windshield, roof, hood, and driver headlight. at least it was frozen. found that laundry detergent will take it right off if it's dried.

buying a alarm with the key fob screen, been looking at compustar and astrostart. anyone have experience with either company? I'm sure it was some drunk college student bc I don't have any enemies here, I'm also sure me and a 30 rd clip of .223's will be on watch the next couple nights.

 

Never heard of those alram kits, I've looked at Viper though and although expensive seem top notch!

 

I guess I should rephrase my previous post. I'm also wanting a remote start function with the alarm. I may check vipers site also. I figure with a key fob that will alert me I can benefit from it if Im fast enough to get to the truck. Mainly for when I'm parked outside at work and someone tries to park as close as they can to me and ends up knicking a door panel when they try to squeeze out of their car. (the DMV shares my parking lot, so it stays constantly busy)

 

I have always had astrostart autostarts. Had one with an alarm on my Tacoma. Didn't work very well in the extreme cold. Even with the sensitivity turned down, the temp changes in the cab kept tripping the glass sensor.

Even with your situation, an alarm probably wouldn't have stopped such an event. Sorry to hear about it, though. Sure does suck.

Other than the glass sensor, everything else worked great, for what that's worth. YMMV

EDIT: Mine wouldn't alert me of minor shocks (door dings), but if I hit the glass hard enough I could set it off. Jumping up and down in the bed and on the running boards did nothing, though.

 

I was wondering how sensitive they were and if they could be too sensitive (like being tripped by some subs turned up blasting bass nearby). I know I won't catch a drunk drive by egger and probably no one else at that matter that isn't trying to break into the truck. Ultimately it will provide peace of mind and really help when I have to start the truck at 7am on those cold mornings before work. Thanks for the input, anyone else is welcome to chime in on previous/present experience with similar systems they have.

 

I had a compustar 2-way with LCD screen a few years ago.
My favourite features were that you could do a 'status' check, ie always see that the car is locked and fine, and therefore see if the car is in range of the remote.
The range was also amazing. At the time I lived in the 17th floor of a concrete apartment building, and the alarm had no problem communicating with the car in the underground garage. One time I had the car parked at my parents and went out on my deck to see if I could get the status function to work. There were no highrisers obstructing the view mind you, but it still got a signal from about 1.5-2km away!!
Another cool feature was that when the car was running, you could hold a button on the remote, remove the key and lock the door with the engine still running. Good for jumping out of the car to run in a store or something.
I havent tried other alarms but the compustar was pretty badass, and this was about 6-7 years ago.

 

Did you ever have any problems with it? My neighbor said he had one installed (not sure of brand) and it evidentally messed his truck up pretty bad. He said the dealer told him it was one of the worst things that could be done to the engine by whoever installed the remote start. I've never heard of this happening, but it was installed on a chevy so who knows lol.

 

I have seen shoddy work on remote start installs and I have seen great work. Unless you are driving a state of the art mercedes or bentley, a reputable shop that has experience and a big portfolio should do a stand up job without any risk to the vehicle.

I had my astrostart (in 5 vehicles) installed by a local shop that has been in the business of automotive modification for over 30 years. They stand by their work for life, so long as you are the original owner (they bend the rules if you sweet talk the owner). In fact, we just took a truck there with a bad remote that was installed over 10 years ago and they just gave us a new one and programmed everything within a few minutes. Definitely research the shop where it will be installed. You won't regret that part.

 

No, no problems with it that I can remember. But what cwrose said, it all comes down to who does the install.

 

I appreciate it guys..I'm going to order one this weekend once I figure out witch one...both companies as well as viper look to have super nice products. I've actually never heard of compustar or astrostart until reading through these forums. I've also never cared enough about previous vehicles to look into remote starts and ive just dealt with the standard security on them; so I'm new to the world of them anyways. Looks like this will be the first mod to the truck I won't be doing myself without a doubt though.