Should you buy a car alarm or rely upon Vehicle Recovery Services such as LoJack and OnStar? The answer is: It depends upon what you want to protect -- the vehicle contents or the vehicle itself.
If you want to protect your vehicle from vandals and petty thieves who are after the vehicle contents, then yes a car alarm serves as a great deterrent because in most instances, the alarm, flashing lights and the possibility that it may attract unwanted attention is likely to scare away the petty thief scumbags before they can do too much damage or get away with your car stereo.
However, an alarm system is not going to be much good for smash-and-grab type crimes where a thief may break a window to quickly snag that ipod or gps that you carelessly left in plain sight for him to steal. (leaving items like that in plain sight is like putting a sign in your windows that says, "The owner is an idiot - Please Steal me!") The blaring alarm in this instance will typically only serve as an alert to you (and your annoyed neighbors) that you have just gotten ripped off.
On the other hand, if you are more concerned about protecting the entire vehicle and want it back if it's ever stolen, then Vehicle Recovery Services such as LoJack and the recovery services of OnStar (found in GM and Some Acura vehicles) can be your best bet. There is a very high recovery rate of vehicles equipped with such systems and if your vehicle is worth a lot or means a lot to you, then the added investment of a recovery system would be money well spent.
See related article: OnStar going silent on millions of vehicles
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