A stolen truck is rarely just a stolen truck. For the operator it means a missed delivery on Monday, an awkward call to a customer on Tuesday, a hire vehicle eating into the month’s margin, and an insurance claim that drags on long after the police report is filed. That is the backdrop to Autosecureshop’s latest commercial job.
The vehicle was a MAN truck that works every day. The owner wanted it harder to steal and easier to recover if someone managed it anyway. Autosecureshop’s fitters installed a SmarTrack S5 GPS tracking system and carried out a Class 1 lock installation on the same visit. One system watches the truck. The other makes it physically awkward to take.
Autosecureshop has a firm view on commercial vehicle protection: no single product does the whole job. A tracker on its own tells the owner where the truck has gone, but it does nothing to stop it going. A lock on its own slows thieves down, but once it’s beaten there’s no way to follow the vehicle. Fitted together, they cover a theft at both ends.
Trucks attract organised criminals for plain commercial reasons. The vehicle has resale value. Its components can be stripped and sold separately. The cargo may be worth more than the truck, and specialist equipment mounted on the chassis often finds a buyer quickly. Professional thieves choose targets with a plan, and they tend to pass over anything that costs them extra time.
The SmarTrack S5 is a Thatcham-approved tracking system built around stolen vehicle recovery. That approval matters more than it sounds. Insurers across the UK recognise Thatcham-approved trackers, and some offer premium discounts when one is fitted, so the operator is buying a tested standard rather than a gadget with a nice app.
What the truck now has:
The S5 category also brings driver recognition. An S5 tracker includes everything in the S7 category plus Automatic Driver Recognition, which means the authorised driver carries an ID card or tag. If the vehicle is driven without the tag present, the monitoring centre calls to check the vehicle is safe. For a truck, where keys get passed between drivers, left in cabs and occasionally copied, that check is worth having. A thief with a cloned key still doesn’t have the card.
Good hardware can still be let down by a poor fit. A MAN truck GPS tracker tucked somewhere obvious, or wired in a hurry, loses much of its value the moment a thief spends five minutes looking for it. Autosecureshop doesn’t outsource installations, so the people fitting the unit are the same specialists who do this work day in, day out.
The second half of the job was a Class 1 lock installation. Its role is straightforward: put a physical barrier between an unauthorised person and the vehicle.
Electronic systems can be studied and attacked from a laptop. A solid lock needs tools and time, and getting through it usually makes noise. Nobody stealing a truck from a yard or a lay-by wants any of that.
The two systems also work on different timescales. The lock does its work in the first few minutes, while someone is trying to get in. The tracker takes over if they succeed and drive off. That handover is the whole reason for layering security instead of hoping one product will cover everything.
Operators often think of theft in terms of what the truck is worth. In practice that’s frequently the smaller part of the bill. Losing a working vehicle brings disrupted deliveries, lost revenue, missed contracts and operating costs that pile up while the business scrambles to fill the gap. For a small haulier running two or three trucks, one theft can take out a third of its capacity overnight.
Set against that, a professionally monitored tracker and a quality lock are a modest outlay. Neither makes a truck impossible to steal, and nothing does. What they do is make it a worse target than the vehicle parked next to it, and give the owner a realistic chance of getting it back if a determined team goes ahead regardless.
Autosecureshop is a UK-based team of vehicle security specialists working nationwide. The company fits trackers, immobilisers, alarms and dash cams on everything from family cars and performance vehicles to commercial vans, trucks and specialist vehicles. Its experience includes work alongside vehicle manufacturers, dealerships, security providers and organisations involved in tackling vehicle crime.
What sets the business apart:
The company is also involved in the wider fight against vehicle crime, working with UK police, the National Vehicle Crime Reduction Partnership (NVCRP) and other organisations committed to improving vehicle security. For an installer, staying close to the people who deal with stolen vehicles every week is a sensible place to be.
Whether a business runs a single commercial vehicle or manages a full fleet, Autosecureshop can help it choose the right combination of protection. That includes Thatcham-approved GPS tracking, immobilisers and additional physical security, all professionally installed anywhere in the UK.
The MAN truck in this job left with a tracker that watches it around the clock and a lock that makes it a slow, noisy target. For any operator whose trucks earn the money, that’s a reasonable standard to aim for.
Contact us today Call-0121 330 0145 / sales@autosecureshop.co.uk. To read reviews, CLICK HERE.
£549.00
