Consumer news
CASE STUDY Supercar owner left bemused as Tracker simply doesn’t work on his car
Watchdog solves your problems, plus you have your say
WHEN you’ve treated yourself to something as special as an Audi R8, you want to take good care of it. And that means keeping it as secure as possible.
That’s why Paul Bowsher, from Tadworth, Surrey, paid around £800 to have a tracking device fitted to his R8 by specialist firm Tracker. The unit was fitted in November last year, and required Paul to carry a small electronic fob with him to let the device know the right person was driving the supercar.
But the problems started almost immediately. Paul said: “I kept getting calls from Tracker Alert, telling me an alarm had been raised, even though I had the electronic chip with me.” Tracker sent Paul a replacement fob, but when this failed to cure the fault, the company fitted a new Tracker unit to the R8. But the issues continued. One worrying symptom was that when Paul tested the new system by driving without the fob, he received no alert from Tracker.
Paul told us: “If my car was stolen, the thieves would be rubbing their hands together.” A third Tracker was duly fitted in February, but when Paul tested this by driving without the security fob: “Surprise surprise, I received no call from Tracker alerting me that the car had been moved.”
While Tracker agreed to give Paul a refund and remove the unit from his R8 at this point, he’d become so frustrated he turned to us for help. We contacted Tracker, and a spokesman said the firm had never knowingly experienced a case like Paul’s before, adding it had tested the faulty units and found them to be working. Tracker said while Paul had suffered issues with connectivity, the “core VHF technology” was operational.
Tracker offered its sincere apologies to Paul, concluding the problem was to do with “localised RF interference where the vehicle is parked overnight”.
Paul, who has now had a tracker fitted by a different company, was sceptical about this, and said: “I was in Cornwall for a week and had the same problems.” He added that an apology “doesn’t make up for the time I’ve spent waiting around for three units to be fitted”.
“The unit required Paul to carry an electronic fob to let the device know the right person was driving”