Fitting a Caravan Tracker

The first question anyone might ask is ‘Why fit a tracker to your caravan’? In fact, this is a question that I have struggled with for some time. My Eriba is either parked outside my front door, or we are away in it, other than those times we are on long-haul vacations. Therefore I have always felt that the costs of fitting a tracker far outweighed by the benefits.  

For me the benefits of fitting a tracker are:

1. Peace of mind when we are away from home without the Eriba.

2. Knowledge that if it was ever stolen then early notification would assist with quick recovery. 

3. An approved tracker would offer a small discount on my annual insurance. 

The benefits I always offset against the costs, which if I am honest have always been, in my consideration quite considerable. Thatcham (or other industry) approved trackers have always been quite an expensive item. Normally in the region of several hundred pounds, which usually includes professional fitting.  But the hardware itself is useless unless you have it monitored, which again will entail additional monthly or annual fees. The discount offered against your insurance premium is relatively small and is something that I do not take into consideration. I certainly don’t think that an insurance premium discount is an incentive to fit a tracker.  

So for the past years, I have always put the question of installing a tracker out of my mind as not being a financially viable when set-off against the risk of my Eriba being actually stolen. 

This year this all changed for me when I came across TruTrak. They offered a well-priced quality tracker that was simple to install and offered to track on a pay-as-you-go system (PAYG). It only required a 10mm spanner to fit and 30 mins of time!   

At £42.99 (including delivery ) and PAYG tracking with the first 14 days free, this small easy to fit yourself tracker caught my eye. I decided to take the plunge and install one. 

 

Installation was a matter of using a 10mm spanner that enable attachment directly to the battery terminals, and attaching the unit to a suitable place by means of the all ready attached double sided tape. The only real consideration I had was were to mount the unit, it had to be in a suitable distance of the battery as the wires are only 40 cm long. Though there is nothing to stop you extending them. 

TruTrak FMT 100 PAYG

The unit came with a simple instruction on how to install and a link to a video on how to install. The most important aspect of the installation was to make sure that it was installed with the unit and the wires facing the direction of travel. 

The battery (and Electroblock) in the Troll 535 are situated under the two pan draws, below the sink and cooker unit which are above the offside wheel arch. Removal of the lower pan draw gave me sufficient access to carry out the installation as is shown in the photograph to the side. 

 

There is a debate about whether the tracker unit should be hidden. Personally, I am not too worried about this as I am more concerned with the features that the tracker unit can give, such as notification upon tilt or if a tracker jamming device is used. Notifications that indicated an attempt prior to a theft. 

Battery compartment Troll 5 (lower pan draw removed)
Fig 1

Having removed the lower pan drawer you can clearly see from the photograph (Fig 1) that the rear wheel arch is conveniently located next to the battery. The wheel arch gives a suitable surface (once cleaned) to attach the tracker to by means of the adhesive pad and is close enough to the battery for the wiring to be attached. 

Fig 2 Shows the positive wire (right red) attached to the positive terminal of the battery. 

Fig 3 shows the tracker in place and wire to the battery with terminal covers back in place. 

 

Fig 2
Fig 3
Fig 4

Fig 4 shows the tracker in place and the lower pan door back institute, as you would see if kneeling on the floor looking into the battery compartment with the door in the open position.  

Having installed the device follow the instructions to set up your account to activate your tracker. Nothing could be easier and the website is quite easy to use and follow. 

For me, as I have already mentioned, notification prior to any theft is important. A quick phone call to the very friendly help desk quickly had email alerts set up to let me know if my caravan was interfered with. I am now at have piece of mind that my Eriba has another level of security that will help early intervention that either will stop the theft or aid the early recovery if such an occurrence should ocur.

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