Charging. help?

[wessie]

They 'clearly got into bed' with BMW a few years ago and BMW offered trackers free of charge with new bikes around 2020/2021.

Datatool are very unprofessional too - my subscription is valid until 2nd April but since I phoned them on Thursday to say that I didn't want to auto renew they immediately ended my tracking so breaking our contract - they really are a bunch of shysters.

Interesting that about 6 months after I bought my 1250GS BMW stopped offering this tracker option - perhaps they had far too many complaints.

Datatool/Scorpion are not to be trusted.

I never commissioned one but inherited an alarm immobiliser on a year old VFR750. It packed up within a few months. The local dealer was good but the back-up from Datatool was appalling. The dealer lost money on providing back-up as Datatool only paid them 1 hour of labour despite it taking longer to do their diagnostic tests before they would send a replacement.
Shortly after, in the mid 1990s, Triumph started fitting them. I knew someone working in a Triumph dealer and they were replacing units every week.

 

[littleade]

Good to see that it's not just me with the problem. I have now taken off the seat unit and removed the Scorpion unit - I'll stick it back in with double sided sticky pads next week but leave it disconnected - at least when I sell or trade in the bike the new owner will have the option of reconnecting it - but I'd advise against it!!!

Mine kept giving false alarms, usually in the early hours of the morning which was annoying. In the end they changed their system so they wouldn't ring me until it was 50m away! They put it in the same place too which as you've found is quite easy to access with the correct torx key. A respectable scroat would have it off the bike and thrown into someone's garden in no time while your bike dissappeared into the distance.

 

[Engineer]

Mine kept giving false alarms, usually in the early hours of the morning which was annoying. In the end they changed their system so they wouldn't ring me until it was 50m away! They put it in the same place too which as you've found is quite easy to access with the correct torx key. A respectable scroat would have it off the bike and thrown into someone's garden in no time while your bike dissappeared into the distance.

Yep it is dead easy to get to with the right size torx bit - under the tank would be better if there was space.

Are there any better trackers on the market that don't drain the battery as quickly?

 

[littleade]

Yep it is dead easy to get to with the right size torx bit - under the tank would be better if there was space.

Are there any better trackers on the market that don't drain the battery as quickly?

If you're not bothered about a subscription service and are happy to be notified via your phone have a look at Monimoto. They're stand alone trackers sobare not wired into the bike's electrics sonwon't drain the battery.

Benefits are you can hide them where YOU want and you save the £100 plus a year subscription

Cons. when the battery gets low (usually around every 12 months) you have to get at it to change the batteries. Being a non subscription devise if it does get nicked you have to deal with the tracking and co-ord with the police etc yourself and you need your phone on/not on silent as a result.

 

[Engineer]

If you're not bothered about a subscription service and are happy to be notified via your phone have a look at Monimoto. They're stand alone trackers sobare not wired into the bike's electrics sonwon't drain the battery.

Benefits are you can hide them where YOU want and you save the £100 plus a year subscription

Cons. when the battery gets low (usually around every 12 months) you have to get at it to change the batteries. Being a non subscription devise if it does get nicked you have to deal with the tracking and co-ord with the police etc yourself and you need your phone on/not on silent as a result.

Thanks, I'll take a look

 

[siddo]

I'd recommend Monimoto. Had one for years and it's a brilliant bit of kit. My mates have them as well and one recoverd his GS when it got nicked at Bishops Gate.
You pay an annual SIM charge of about £30.

 

[Engineer]

I suspect the Scorpion trackers were designed for cars and commercial vehicles with 100AH batteries, the 50mA drain would not be an issue with these batteries.

 

[Deleted account 260111001]

I’m afraid my Monimotos are very inaccurate, they very often show up to half a mile from where they actually are, and one in the car went bonkers and kept calling even though it’s fob was fully charged and was showing as being in range.

I’ve let one lapse now as if it were stolen it’s so inaccurate that finding the bike would be a stroke of luck.