What a ghost immobiliser actually is, and what we fit

If you have been reading about stopping your car being stolen, you have run into the phrase “ghost immobiliser” and probably not found a straight explanation of what one is. Here is one.

What the thing actually does

Every modern car has an internal network its computers talk over, called the CAN bus. A ghost immobiliser is a small unit wired into that network. It listens, and until it sees a PIN sequence it recognises, it will not let the car be driven away.

You enter that sequence on buttons the car already has: the steering wheel controls, the window switches, the climate buttons. You pick the combination yourself, up to about twenty presses. Nothing extra is fitted to the dashboard. No keypad, no key fob, no little red LED blinking on the centre console.

That last part is the whole design. Anything a thief can see is something a thief can work around. Someone sitting in your car with a cloned key sees an entirely standard interior and a car that will not move.

Why this exists now

Car theft changed. Breaking a lock or hot-wiring the ignition is no longer the easy route into a modern car.

The easy route is the key. A relay attack uses two people and two devices: one stands near your front door picking up the signal from the key on the hall table, the other stands by the car repeating it. The car believes the key is present. It unlocks, it starts, and it is gone, with no damage and often no noise.

Key cloning is the same idea with more preparation. Either way, the thief ends up with something the car accepts as your key.

An immobiliser like this makes that insufficient. The signal gets them into the car and it gets the engine running. It does not get them a PIN sequence they have no way of knowing.

Where the name comes from, and what we fit

“Ghost” began as one manufacturer’s product name for a device of this type. It caught on, and it has become the word people use for the whole category, in the same way people ask for a Hoover when they want a vacuum cleaner.

So when someone rings up asking for a ghost immobiliser, what they are almost always describing is the type of system rather than one company’s box.

We fit the Scorpion X-Series, made by Scorpion Automotive in Chorley. It is covert, it works over the CAN bus, and it uses a PIN sequence on the car’s own buttons, with no fobs and no LEDs. Our page for it still carries the word “ghost”, because it is the word you will have searched for. We would rather name the unit going into your car up front than let you find out afterwards.

What it will not do

This matters more than the list of what it will do, because the gap is where people get caught out.

It is not a tracker. Determined thieves will put a car on a low-loader, and an immobiliser has nothing to say about that. Recovery is a tracker’s job.

It will not satisfy an insurer asking for a tracker. When a policy sets a security requirement, it names a Thatcham category, and those categories cover tracking products. An immobiliser is a different product and does not meet a requirement written for a tracker, however good it is. Read the wording your insurer sent you and fit what it names.

It does not interfere with the car while you are driving. It has done its job before you pull away, and nothing about it can stop a moving car. The system is built that way on purpose.

It is not a substitute for locking your car. Obvious, but it still needs saying.

Living with one

The real cost is a couple of seconds. You get in, you enter your sequence, you drive. After a fortnight you stop noticing it, in the same way you stopped noticing your phone’s passcode.

Two things to think about when you choose the sequence. Make it something you can do in the dark, in the rain, with a child shouting in the back. This is not the moment for elegance. And do not use a pattern anyone watching from the passenger seat would pick up in one go.

Service mode covers the garage and the valet: someone can drive the car without your sequence and without the system being switched off for good.

Is it right for your car?

The cars being taken this way are the ones with a resale market: newer VW, Audi, BMW and Mercedes, performance models, and almost anything with keyless entry. If your car is on that list and it sits on a driveway overnight, this is a reasonable thing to be thinking about.

If your car is not, and nobody has asked you to fit anything, you may be solving a problem you do not have. We would rather tell you that than sell you a box.

The strongest setup is an immobiliser and a Thatcham-certified tracker together. We sell them as a pair for that reason, rather than pretending either one covers the whole problem.