Porsche Vehicle Tracking System - is it worth it? - Page 2 - Porsche General - PistonHeads UK

Hi - I'm about a month away from picking up my first Porsche and was wondering if its worth using the PVTS... I guess my main questions are, is it reliable and recognised by insurers in the UK and do people find it relatively costs effective? Or what is the more common go-to option for trackers these days? Thanks for any insight!

Yes it is worth it, costs aren't that much in the big scheme of things, and as for insurance - depends on your underwriter/broker. Regardless of any discout given or otherwise by the insurance, there are other benefits to the system.

Would you really want the car back if it had been stolen? I can’t imagine there’s a huge net financial benefit, but equally I literally have no actual clue about that Cheers

No, pain in the arse literally, I always try and avoid it if the insurance company allows no tracker. My current car has been back to the dealer twice in 4 month for a tracker reset which involves them having the car all day.

Had a tracker on first Porsche and was an insurance requirement I use it. On a couple of occasions when I forgot to carry the fob it took them 2 days to call me to see if it was me driving it. So as well as it being a pain, I’m not sure it would be much help in the event someone stole it!

The cost of having it turned on on my car is more than the insurance reduction and if my car was nicked I wouldn't want it back. My ex's 911 had to have it activated for insurance. When it went for a service on one occasion they discovered it didn't actually work and hadn't for months - zero alert was ever given. So I'm not convinced it's a great system!

Many thanks - quite helpful comments and reinforces my sentiments. Rgds

Insurance Co insisted on it on my Cayenne as they are apparently favoured by ram raiders! 997tt didn’t need it which means only one tag in my wallet, phew.

Well. PVTS integrated into the vehicle, so no potential for electrical warranty disagreements. That said, I do have a Tracker in my Cayman, and I’ve never had a problem.

David W. said: Insurance Co insisted on it on my Cayenne as they are apparently favoured by ram raiders! 997tt didn’t need it which means only one tag in my wallet, phew. Just a quick note; if you did decide to go for the tracker on the 997tt, you can program the same fobs to multiple cars - and up to 7 fobs on each car. I have seen owners of multiple cars using one fob across their whole collection.

glm1977 said: ... recognised by insurers in the UK and do people find it relatively costs effective? Get a quote with and without, even just on the online comparison sites. On a new 992S Cab I found lots of insurers wouldn't quote on the comparison sites until I ticked the tracker box. Difference for me was multiple times the activation cost.

I have it on my 2019 Cayenne (insurance requirment). Given the choice I wouldn't want the car back !! This is the 2nd 2019 Cayenne (long story !!) but both suffer with "Driver Card not found" error which then leads to Vodafone Tracker calling to check that its not being stolen. To be fair they call relatively promptly, but why the errors ?

I’m about to collect a new (to me) 991.2 tomorrow, which has a Porsche VTS tracker registered to the current owner. Can the remaining subscription be transferred to me, the new owner. Or does it have to be ended and whole new year subscription started?

No. Cost of subscription outweighs discount from insurer. In my case I don’t remember seeing a discount from any of the insurers I checked. I never bothered activating it. Plus as others have mentioned - would you want a car back that someone else had stolen/thrashed? Edited by le_gazman on Tuesday 10th March 21:08

Most people probably wouldn’t want the car back. I fall in a different camp of really hating car crime and doing absolutely anything to make their criminal lives more difficult. But are you one of those people who leave the car keys by the front door along with a note saying please don’t hurt me take whatever you want, here are the car keys, or are you somebody who dominates the stairs? I joke, but you get the gist.

I’ve had several trackers as they were insurance requirements. The cost of the trackers outweighed any saving in the insurance cost as I found out eventually, but insurers who don’t require them seemed few and far between (at sensible rates). I now use a multi-car policy that doesn’t require trackers but it took me a while to sort out searching for that company across a few cars with varying insurance renewal. Now onto tracker ownership... I had to replace two that stopped working, they drain the battery more so a charger becomes essential and you need to remember to speak to the tracker company when it’s being serviced etc to have alerts deactivated/activated. All of the above caused aggravation. I also don’t believe that any thief with a modicum of knowledge cannot block or disable them so I’m not sure they achieve their primary goal. In summary, I’d avoid.

Porsche system is garbage ex cobra now Vodafone. Hassle carrying the cards and you wouldn’t want that car back, unless it’s a requirement for insurance don’t bother as others have said unless you have to have one makes hardly any premium difference. We have it on the wife’s Macan and cards just sit in the car pack unused.

Have it on my Cayman, works well. Forgot to leave the fob with the Porsche dealer when I took it in for some work and got a call as soon as they started it up. Of course if you don't want your car back don't have it, but generally cars once stolen are left parked to see if they are being tracked, and I'd rather mine was tracked and collected before they had the chance to collect and trash it.

Hi folks, I've just picked up a 911, 991.1 Carrera 4S. It's a great car, but there's one little niggle; the previous owner had a tracker fitted, so when the car's ignition is turned on the display shows a yellow warning icon. Moving the info. stalk forward Makes it smaller & moves it to the bottom of the display, so it's no big deal, but apparently it can only be switched off by a Porsche dealer. Or subscribe to the tracking service, which I'm not interested in doing. I was wondering if there's some other means of getting the blasted thing to disappear?

If it were me I’d be taking it back to where you just picked it up from and telling them to sort it ? Not sure why it’s showing a warning just because it’s not subscribed to a service ? See what they say and if all else fails for a 150 quid it might be worth subscribing,

Suffolk Tony said: Hi folks, I've just picked up a 911, 991.1 Carrera 4S. It's a great car, but there's one little niggle; the previous owner had a tracker fitted, so when the car's ignition is turned on the display shows a yellow warning icon. Moving the info. stalk forward Makes it smaller & moves it to the bottom of the display, so it's no big deal, but apparently it can only be switched off by a Porsche dealer. Or subscribe to the tracking service, which I'm not interested in doing. I was wondering if there's some other means of getting the blasted thing to disappear? You could try ringing Vodafone and asking them. It could be something at their end. Maybe the car still has some subscription left over from the previous keeper. Did you get given the 2 key cards on vehicle handover and what happens if you drive the car with one in your pocket ??

I'm just going into year 2 of 992 ownership. Just been looking at the meerkat website, I'm 47, 1 accident, 3 points, 6,000 miles a year, not garaged, 90k value, 4yrs NCB, good postode. Without tracker, best price (Admiral), £1,125, with tracker, best price (Chruchill), £558. No brainer. If someone cares to nick it, they can take fob and the keys, I'm not going to stop them. Fob is a bit of a PITA.

Think I’m going to take up car theft, judging by the number of people on here who’d simply hand over their keys (+fob) without a fight ...

Schmed said: Think I’m going to take up car theft, judging by the number of people on here who’d simply hand over their keys (+fob) without a fight ... Depends on the fight. If they are armed, it’s not worth it. But first they have to get passed my trusty shepherd

I've got two kids, and I'm only a lightly built director. Someone takes the effort to break in while occupied, well, thats what I pay insurance for, crack on chaps, do you want both sets? No dominating the stairs here, despite having an array of Duncan Fearnley's finest at my disposal in the wardrobe lol!

The VTS is a major hassle. I’ve had mine go bad and on a 991, the entire centre console and dashboard has to come out to reset it. That’s £1500. Minimum. It’s now gone bad a second time and interestingly, it went bad both times when I was driving on the Isle of Skye. The dealer thinks it’s a coincidence but I’ve recently found that the rock there disturbs the operation of compasses and while I believe the VTS primarily uses GPS, it may also use a compass as backup to triangulate between Vodafone cells. It might just be that garbage results cause the software to hang up... My understanding is that the VTS is reset by power cycling it with a magnet held to the side but there’s the small matter of getting at it.

I've had it on five cars....insurance requirements on all of them when new but not as they get older/worth less. Hope this isn't jinxing myself but never had a problem apart from batteries going flat in fobs after a year or so. It's not cheap but the system seems to work okay. Personally on my GT3 when it's in being serviced I like being able to set speed dependent alerts etc I wouldn't use an insurance company because they do or don't require a tracker....insurance you get what you pay for like everything else. If you can get one with good cover that meets your requirements and doesn't need a tracker then that's great.

So i've just taken delivery of a stunning Porsche Cayenne Coupe, and my insurance company have mandated the tracker to be activated, which is fine. However, has anyone seen the size of the new tracker fob?! Compared to the old thin driver cards, it's huge, in fact it's bigger than the key for the car! My question is, i always keep my house and car key separate, so i want a pouch i can put the fob in, on my house key, has anyone got one? There's loads of products for the old driver cards, but none that fit the new one.... For reference, here's a pic of my new driver card...

Dragging up an oldish thread - but does anyone know if you can simply lapse the PVTS (vodafone) system at the end of your contract? Insurance company doesn't seem to mandate a tracker any longer but I noted an earlier post indicating the fob warning was popping up on the dash. I don't want to pay for removal\disablement and can't get through to Vodafone to get an answer. Oh and that new fob looks massive!

I’ve just picked a new 992 and got the large fobs shown above. If I had known this was a fob based system I’d have passed on it and fitted a separate phone based system where the phone in essence becomes the fob. I had a phone based system fitted to a 991 I bought second hand and whilst I did occasionally nip out for some milk and not take my phone, the reality is who doesn’t normally automatically take their phone everywhere with them…. Fobs that cannot fit in a wallet or even have a hole so you can put them on a key ring are frankly rubbish as a solution in this era of us all having phones that never leave our side. Strange that Porsche don’t have a phone as a fob option. It’s a solution that has been around for years.

CraigV12V said: I’ve just picked a new 992 and got the large fobs shown above. If I had known this was a fob based system I’d have passed on it and fitted a separate phone based system where the phone in essence becomes the fob. I had a phone based system fitted to a 991 I bought second hand and whilst I did occasionally nip out for some milk and not take my phone, the reality is who doesn’t normally automatically take their phone everywhere with them…. Fobs that cannot fit in a wallet or even have a hole so you can put them on a key ring are frankly rubbish as a solution in this era of us all having phones that never leave our side. Strange that Porsche don’t have a phone as a fob option. It’s a solution that has been around for years. I've always used a different tracker company due to the fobs.

Ordered new Cayenne Coupe to be told Porsche no longer fit the PTS+ system as standard. Dealer wants £720 to fit a Vodafone VTS, the price includes one years subscription to Vodafone. My question is:- why has a major car manufacturer stopped fitting trackers as standard when car theft is rife? Do they want more Porsche's stolen???

My guess would be cost

zz top said: Ordered new Cayenne Coupe to be told Porsche no longer fit the PTS+ system as standard. Dealer wants £720 to fit a Vodafone VTS, the price includes one years subscription to Vodafone. My question is:- why has a major car manufacturer stopped fitting trackers as standard when car theft is rife? Do they want more Porsche's stolen??? Maybe a MY23 build car, but my incoming Macan GTS says: "Porsche Vehicle Traking System Plus (PVTS Plus) - subscription required." Complete with typo!

zz top said: Ordered new Cayenne Coupe to be told Porsche no longer fit the PTS+ system as standard. Dealer wants £720 to fit a Vodafone VTS, the price includes one years subscription to Vodafone. My question is:- why has a major car manufacturer stopped fitting trackers as standard when car theft is rife? Do they want more Porsche's stolen??? My understanding is that Porsche starting fitting their own instead of Vodafone and have had nothing but trouble with them, my car had a problem and was off the road for 7 weeks due to the tracker. I was told that Porsche had taken the decision not to offer a tracker.

JohnnyUK said: zz top said: Ordered new Cayenne Coupe to be told Porsche no longer fit the PTS+ system as standard. Dealer wants £720 to fit a Vodafone VTS, the price includes one years subscription to Vodafone. My question is:- why has a major car manufacturer stopped fitting trackers as standard when car theft is rife? Do they want more Porsche's stolen??? Maybe a MY23 build car, but my incoming Macan GTS says: "Porsche Vehicle Traking System Plus (PVTS Plus) - subscription required." Complete with typo! My order stated the same but when the new Cayenne was delivered to the OPC dealer last week (ready to prep for 1st September delivery) I was informed the PVTS+ was no longer fitted at the factory as a standard feature and if a tracker was required i had to order via local OPC. My insurance company requires an S5 system, hence I've had OPC fit a Vodafone system at £720.