The Do’s and Dont’s of Buying a Remote Car Starter

The subject of this article will mainly be centered on the key things you don’t want to do when buying a remote car starter this season, with a few do’s thrown in as well. Keep in mind these are basically universal truths. Even if you don’t buy from us, or you’re reading this from halfway across the country, sticking to these will definitely pay off!

Rule #1 is certainly the most important of all… DON’T buy a remote car starter system from one place, and have it installed at another!!! Whether it’s the internet, auto parts place, or some random Black Friday deal, buying from one place and having it installed somewhere else has the potential for disaster. First, imagine dropping your vehicle off for the day to have your remote car starter installed. The anticipation and excitement grows as the day goes by and it’s almost time to go pick up your awesome new convenience feature! All of that excitement turns to frustration as the shop calls you to let you know the remote start you brought in isn’t working properly. Now what do you do?? They’ve already installed the complete system, so you’re forced to pay for the installation, ship the main control unit back to the place you got it from, and hope they get it taken care of and back to you in a reasonable amount of time. Once you get it back, assuming they were even an authorized dealer and the warranty was good, you then have to pay the technician to re-install and program it all over again. Not only is there a cost involved that just negated any saving you initially had, but you’ve also been inconvenienced by having to drop your vehicle off multiple times to be worked on. So much for your new “convenience system” huh?

Now, assume you had bought your remote car start from the same shop. If the product had an issue, you wouldn’t have a care in the world! The technician simply walks in the stockroom, picks up another unit, programs it and your vehicle is ready to go right on time.

It’s a fact that installation is the single most important thing when it comes to a remote starter, so important, that most companies won’t even warranty their product unless the selling authorized dealer did the installation! Our mobile electronics technicians install 100’s of car remote starts each year, and they become intimately familiar with the wiring, programming, and intricacies of the systems they install. When you ask that same technician to install a system they are not familiar with, it’s going to take longer, with more potential headaches. The last thing you want are return trips to fix random programming issues. It’s kind of like taking your windows computer into an Apple store for service. Apple and Windows based PC’s are both computers right? Sure they are, but they are definitely not the same!

Rule #2 is….. DO ask what the warranty is on the system! Any reputable remote car starter manufacturer will warranty the main equipment for the life of the vehicle. The remotes for the systems themselves will vary from one to two years. Mainly due to the remotes undergoing a decent amount of abuse over their lives, being dropped, getting wet, etc. Make sure the shop installing the system will also be warrantying the installation labor. The manufacturer of the automatic starter will warranty the parts, but the shop will be the one footing the warranty of the installation. This is something where we strongly suggest going to the location you’re thinking about using, and checking out their facilities. Have they been in business for a while? Do their facilities look like they are serious about doing the best job for their customer possible? Just being in business for a long time doesn’t equal quality. You can really tell a lot about a business by the way they handle and present themselves. Check their reviews! Do they have quality control procedures in place to make sure employees don’t take shortcuts that could endanger you or the people around the vehicle? (we’re talking about multiple thousands of pounds of vehicle starting while unattended!

Rule #3 is….. DON’T buy from the cheapest place!! Higher price certainly doesn’t always mean that it’s being done better, but the cheapest price is almost always going to be bad news. We will definitely not be the least expensive place to find a remote car starter, but there are distinct reasons for that, that are very important to your long term satisfaction. First of all, these things are complicated! Remote Starts are very detailed systems that have to be done right or not done at all. As we said before, installation is the key to a remote start. If the shop is doing it cheap, then they have to be doing it fast. If they are doing it fast, they are likely skimping on quality and safety to do so. Are they not installing safety features under the hood to make sure no one is ever injured by it starting accidentally while the car is being worked on? Are they not connecting super important data wires correctly, causing the remote start to work fine initially, but go nutty on you a few weeks down the road? Your vehicle is likely one of the largest investments you’ve made, do you really want it in the hands of some technician that is underpaid and always in a hurry because he needs to get to the next job ASAP to feed his family? We pay our technicians well, and have VERY specific quality control procedures to ensure a consistent result every time. Isn’t having the best quality in your vehicle worth a few bucks more up front? (actually, we have two technicians that were voted in the Top 100 Installers in the country the past two years, out of over 6000 nationwide).

Rule #4 is…. DON’T try to shop for price over the phone! Trust me, I understand that you feel you need to call around and look for the best price, but at the end of the day it truly is a number that you can’t really trust. Many places will quote you the cheapest price they can come up with, problem is, they’ve left off half the key features that you will really want and/or have to have. Many super stores and others will quote you something crazy like $159 installed, only for you to go in for the installation, and find out you need an additional $200 or more worth of parts to make it work with your car. The majority of vehicles out there will need an interface to make the system work properly with that particular vehicles security system. A remote car starter will NOT work without it, so what good is a price without it being accurate! Always try to take your vehicle by their location to let them see it and go over things with you. If they are blurting out prices without asking you a bunch of specific questions about your daily life and use of the vehicle, they are likely just lowballing you to do the old “bait and switch”.

The last and final rule for this blog is DO go to the shop to look at the options!!!! I know we covered checking out the shop a few times already, but you also need to look at the remote start systems themselves! There is a good chance you’re going to be using this system to start, lock, and unlock your car every single day for many years to come. Go by the store, check out the remotes themselves and have a specialist go over exactly how it works. Hold the remote in your hand and perform the functions yourself, making sure the remotes are comfortable to use. It sounds like a simple thing, but they really aren’t all the same! The whole point to buying an automatic starter is for the convenience and comfort it brings. Don’t settle for something that will irritate you every single day because the remote itself is pesky and you don’t like using it!!

While these “rules” we’ve put out there certainly don’t cover everything about remote car starters, they will definitely make a huge difference in your long term experience if you use them. If you‘re looking for a remote car starter in the Richmond, VA area, we would love to earn your business. If you’re reading this after finding our site and you’re not in our area, these pointers will hopefully help you find the right place to service your needs.

If you’re on a fact finding mission for remote starters, and would like more info, check out these two links to other blogs we’ve written in the past that cover many frequently asked questions and other remote car start features.

Extreme Audio’s Remote Start FAQ

Extreme Audio’s Remote Car Starter 101

Also, if you’re out of our area, there is a good “e-book” written by a friend of ours that covers a WIDE range of remote starter facts and information that may be worth your time. We are not financially connected to it at all, but it does offer a good list of screened, reputable shops nationwide that may be in your area.

The Ultimate Remote Car Starter Buying Guide