Buying advice
Is a Ghost immobiliser worth it?
Worth it for some cars and a waste of money on others. Here is how to work out which yours is, including the cases where we would tell you not to bother.
We fit these for a living, so treat what follows accordingly. That said, we turn this job down often enough that we may as well set out the reasoning, because a Ghost is genuinely wrong for a fair number of the people who ask about one.
The one question that decides it
Everything hinges on this: are you worried about the car being driven away, or about something happening to it?
Those are different fears and they need different products.
If you picture yourself opening the curtains and finding an empty driveway, a Ghost is aimed precisely at that. The Ghost is the most effective thing we fit for stopping a vehicle being driven off, and it does that job better than an alarm does.
If you picture a scratched door, missing wheels, a catalytic converter cut out, or your tools gone from the back of a van, a Ghost will do nothing whatsoever for you. It is silent, it has no sensors, and it will never tell you anything is happening. You want an alarm instead, and we would say so.
Most people who ask us about a Ghost have the first fear. A meaningful minority have the second and have not separated the two, which is why we ask before quoting.
When it is clearly worth it
Your car is keyless. If you can unlock and start it with the key in your pocket, it can be relayed, and relay theft is how a great many cars now disappear. A Ghost is not defeated by a relayed key, a cloned key, or your genuine key in the wrong hands.
Your car is a model that gets targeted. Some makes and models are taken far more than others, because there is a market for the parts and a known method for the vehicle. If yours is on that list you are not dealing with opportunists.
It lives on a driveway or a street overnight. Visible, accessible, and unattended for eight hours at a stretch.
Replacing it would genuinely hurt. Not just financially. A car you have waited months for, or one that is difficult to replace at any price, changes the maths.
When we would tell you not to bother
An older car with a traditional key. If there is no keyless entry, the relay attack does not apply, and the theft methods that do apply are cruder. The value is much lower.
A car nobody is looking for. Ordinary, older, unremarkable, parked somewhere quiet. The honest answer is that it is unlikely to be selected in the first place.
It lives in a locked garage. A garage removes most of the opportunity. You may not need us at all.
Your actual worry is theft from the vehicle. Covered above, and worth repeating because it is the most common mismatch we see.
You want to know when something happens. A Ghost never tells you anything. If you want a phone alert when the car is touched, that is an alarm, and buying a Ghost expecting notifications leads to disappointment.
What about the cost?
We do not publish prices, because a quote depends on the vehicle and no two jobs are identical. What is worth understanding is where the money goes: a meaningful part of it is the installation rather than the hardware, and that is not padding. A well hidden system and a carelessly fitted one are different products, and what affects the cost goes into that properly.
The question to ask is not “is this expensive” but “what is the excess on my policy, what happens to my premium after a claim, and how long would I be without the car?” For most people the answer to that makes a one-off spend look reasonable. For some it does not, and that is a legitimate conclusion.
What you actually get for it
No keypad on the dashboard, no LED, nothing to see, and no extra fob unless you want one. You tap a sequence on buttons the car already has and drive off as normal. It takes a couple of seconds once it is habit, and there is nothing to charge, replace or subscribe to.
There is no monthly cost, which over several years is a genuine difference from a monitored tracker.
The straight answer
A Ghost is worth it if the thought that keeps you up is the car not being there in the morning, and particularly if it is keyless and desirable.
It is not worth it if your real concern is damage, contents, or knowing what is happening, and it is not worth much on a vehicle nobody is likely to target.
Tell us the make, model and year, where it sits overnight, and what you are genuinely worried about. If a Ghost is not the right answer we will say so, including when the right answer is that you do not need anything.