What do you know about a KILL SWITCH?!?!?!

Hello

As some of you might know from the accord forum, my car was ALMOST stolen!
I was lucky and they didn't take my car.

They tried to go through my hood to cut the hood cable in order to kill my alarm.

Right now, I have an Alpine Alarm and The Club as my security.

I was thinking about a KILL SWITCH.
My friend knows about it and he suggested to place one for the Fuel Line. Thus, even though they might get into the car, they can never drive away with it.....even after they try to hot wire it.

Another person told me to put hood pins, but I don't think that is a good idea since it will make my car look funny.

What do you think!??!!?
What type of Kill Switch do you have or suggest?!?!?!
What do you suggest I do to secure my car better?!?!?!

THANKS
:D

This is all I know...
http://www.jdmfan.com/technical/audio-security/killswitch/

i had a starter kill switch on my other car and they were able to bypass it and steal the car anyways (never found it again).

i've heard of fuel pump kill switch which totally disables the fuel pump or some other part of your vehicle.

they also have engine kill which they said is also effective.

the problem with kill switches is that most real car theives know what to look for. they can find the switch too. the bottom line is that the more preventive steps (security) you take, the longer it'll take the theif. hopefully he'll get discouraged or (gasp) realize it's not worth it and leave it alone. either way, the longer it takes the theif, the more time you have to load your gun. but, realistically, if a good theif wants your car bad enough, they'll get it sooner or later.

unqualified expert - lost two civics 98 ex 2 dr and 96 hatch to shit head theives.

If your gonna put in a switch, obviously put it somewhere where the thief is to never find it. Think of even the dumbest place to put it and the thief might not ever think of that.:devil:

They'll just tow your car away. get one of those paging systems or lo jack...

you're paged when someone messes with your car, so you can go out and smack the hell out of him

Originally posted by RiceRocket

you're paged when someone messes with your car, so you can go out and smack the hell out of him


HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA
LOL

I can just imagine myself **SMACKING** him with the back of my hand.
HEHEHEHEHEHE

or better yet, get a white glove and do it.
then challenge him to a duel
:p


i'm probably going to a put a kill switch.
i just need to find an accurate wiring diagram for my car.

Originally posted by ACCORDLVR
the problem with kill switches is that most real car theives know what to look for. they can find the switch too. the bottom line is that the more preventive steps (security) you take, the longer it'll take the theif. hopefully he'll get discouraged or (gasp) realize it's not worth it and leave it alone. either way, the longer it takes the theif, the more time you have to load your gun. but, realistically, if a good theif wants your car bad enough, they'll get it sooner or later.

unqualified expert - lost two civics 98 ex 2 dr and 96 hatch to shit head theives.

All very true statements.

A properly installed kill switch can be done in a fashion that even another professional installer would have a very hard time locating it.

Perfect example: I spent over an hour trying to locate a fuel cut off on a 96 Mustang that I was removing the alarm etc.. for an insurance company on a repo deal. Normally I would have located this in less than 2 minutes, but the installer took a lot of care in running wires in factory looms, and hiding the switch. I was ready to run a new wire when I finally came across his.

Bottom line:
Anything you can do to slow a thief down, improves chances of your vehicle being where you parked it when you get back...

but.

nothing stops a tow truck!!

are most of these common theives now have tow trucks too??? this just makes it all the scarier... my question is how do they get a hold of tow trucks... don't they need to have permits to have one or do they just steal that too....


and most of the time they steal your car at your apartment at 2AM in the morning so it's almost already too late when you find out about your car being stolen 4 hours later. They probably have it in parts.

Originally posted by RiceRocket
are most of these common theives now have tow trucks too??? this just makes it all the scarier... my question is how do they get a hold of tow trucks... don't they need to have permits to have one or do they just steal that too....

No, only the big outfits will have tow trucks.. It's just kinda hard to be inconspicuous when towing a vehicle with the alarm screaming through the neighborhood at 2am!! You will get reported to the cops, and when you get pulled over, you better have repo orders, otherwise .......... Busted!!

a friend of a friend of mine had their cars towed right out of their garage at noon! good thing he was home at that moment when the thieves came and he ran after them and they left the car and just ran off in their tow truck... this was in texas.

fuck thieves

I installed and ignition kill switch into my 1976 corolla on the wire from the coil to the dizzy(only because I was bored one-day), and the night after I got some chrome 17's on it some bugger tried stealing it, they rolled it out of my driveway and even had a spare rotor and coil lead (which I had taken) but couldn't get it started and ended up leaving it on the side of the road about three houses down.
I believe the trick is to find a spot to put your switch that you can't see easily or at all if you have a good look up under your dash, even with a torch (also i'd recommend a black switch, not chrome or coloured) if you mount it there. Or put it in the most rediculous spot you can think of that noone else would ever dream of looking. But also easy for you to get 2.
Mine was up in the dash and I could get to it easily yet when I was camping at New Years and broke my leg ending up in hospital, my mate had to drive it home for me and even after giving him simple instructions on how to find it he had a hell of a time locating it (ended up finding it after a few hours and me explaining it to him three times)
Also if a "professional" car thief want's your car there is virtually nothing you can do to stop them, short of sitting in your car 24/7 with a shotgun.

About two weeks ago, I was laying in bed when I heard my pager making some noises I'd never heard before. I run outside in jeans, no shirt or shoes to see a tow truck trying to hook up to my car. Turns out the payment I had made earlier that week got screwed up and they sent my car to repo. If it werent for that alarm, I woulda been hosed. Hornet 564T ftw

What was the purpose of resurrecting this thread? Isn't that against the rules?

I just installed a similar kill switch in car on the parking light circuit and then decided (belatedly) to check if anyone else had approached it in the same way.

It is actually a very simple and clean way to install a kill switch. It requires no extra wires into the cabin, no drilling of new holes (a problem I faced) through the firewall and it can easily be returned to stock standard with a few deft snips of wire. It requires basic car electrics knowledge and an understanding of relays. I suggest you buy a simple circuit tester and read this: http://www.autoshop101.com/forms/hweb2.pdf

Skill with a soldering iron is ideal, but you can be as messy as you like because you'll cover it up with insulating tape afterward.

Materials & Equipment

- 15Amp Wire
- Automotive Relay
- Solder
- Electrical Tape
- Soldering Iron
- Crimp Connectors (if you don't want to solder)
- Cable Ties

Purchase a 60Amp relay. This way it will cope with ANYTHING required of it. The input amps on the coil are normally only 20A but you might as well allow for spikes in current draw. Most relays of such a high amperage will be 5 pin relays, which have a normally-on position and a normally off position so that with the switch off power still runs through on one pole but with the switch on the power runs through the other pole, deactivating the normally on pole. This way, you can do fancy things like wire a switch to flick between two devices.

Step 1: Find your ignition coil and then identify the live wire from the parking lamp nearest to the coil. Cut it and add a new length of wire at the cut. You'll have the power coming along, hitting the join and then going to the parking light and to your loose-end of wire.

Step 3: Wire the loose end of that wire to the comms-pin of your relay. The comms-pins are normally a smaller size than the actual power pins as they only have to deal with the small current running the switch and the bigger pins can run the actual device (in this case, the coil).

Step 4: Wire the other comms-pin to the earth of the car (any bit of bodywork). There are always bolts/screws tapping into bodywork which can be lifted and have a wire attached to them (either use a proper connector shaped like this: --O with a hole on the end to stick the screw through or just wrap the wire around the shaft of the bolt or screw and tighten around the wire. As long as you tighten fully it'll still do the trick.

Step 5: Detach the positive IN from the coil. Cut it halfway along its length, and add extra length of wire on both cut ends. You then attach each of the loose ends of your new wire to the power-pins on the relay. Make sure you attach it to the 'Normally Off' pin so that without the parking lights on it won't start. Reattach the connector the the coil.

Step 6: Insulate all your joins with plenty of electrical tape.

Step 7: Use your cable ties to hold the relay up and out of the way of rainfall or areas where water may accumulate. Cable ties are ideal because they are temporary and will allow you to easily remove the relay should you decide to change your security solution or remove it entirely.

Step 8: Use cable ties to tidy up the wiring.

Here is a schematic (faint dots are there because the forum software deletes large spaces):

------- ...................... ----
|Lamp| ______________|Join|_______________<<Power in for lamp<<
------- ...................... ----
....................................|
....................................|
....................................|
.............................. ---------
>>Coil Positive IN>>___|RELAY|______>>Power going to Coil
.............................. ---------
....................................|
....................................|
....................................|
................................ _____
.................................. ___
.................................... -
................................ Earth
The beauty of this solution is that it is easily removed either to return the car to standard (remove relay and rejoin wiring at the cuts on the positive IN wire and the parking lamp wire) or if some part of it fails. Most importantly, it is imperceptible from the cabin. With the parking lamps off, the starter motor will turn over, but there will be no spark. It will sound as though the car is out of fuel. With the headlights or parking lights on, the car will spring into life. They also say parking lights in daytime increases the visibility of your cars, so it's road-safety by necessity.

Now, any car thief worth his salt knows that to start a car you only need to:

1. Break the steering lock.
2. Wire the coil straight to the battery
3. Get the starter motor going by briefly jumping it with a cable to the battery.

All the under-dash stuffing about is pure Hollywood. In short, if the thief is anything more than a joy-rider or a heroin-junkie, you need to find a way to keep the engine bay secure and inaccessible. Joy riders will smash up your dash to rewire the ignition key barrell. Professional thieves will rewire your under-hood electrics.

For the cheap junkheap I wired my killswitch into, all I'm trying to deter is joy-riders (as my make/model is notoriously easy to break into and hotwire) and due to a front-shunt to the car you need two people to open the hood; one to pull the release cable, the other to lift up the hood the first part of the way (before you stick your fingers in to un-latch it). For desirable cars, this mightn't be enough to stop them. Hell, if they're serious, they'll just put it on a flatbed tow truck.

Hey guys i have a 99 bmw 323i i recently bought the car and i noticed that the car had a blue button on the button of the steering column, i have no idea what i might be am thinking it might be a kill switch because the doors wont lock (driver door) so am thinking the pervious owner must had but it on there. I think its does have to do something with the fuel pump because now my car wont start, also the gas gauge wont wont so i can never tell if my car is low on gas. please helppp!!

sounds like you need to find the owner that had it installed. I would be guessing at best what some "blue switch" does if it's not factory.