
I have this same alarm installed in my Syclone.  It works great.  The shock
sensor is very sensitive, but much more practical than the motion sensor I have
on my other car.  It doesn't trigger if the car is rocked gently by the wind,
but any kind of shock sets it off.  Even kicking the tire sets it off.  It
works great.


The shock sensor is adjustable and there are two cycles on it.  You can adjust
it to be sensitive enough that there is no way you could open the hood without
setting off the alarm.  Although, I know that you cannot pop the hood on the
Syclone without setting off my alarm now, and yet I have had zero (none!) false
alarms with this system.  The alarm tells you when you disarm it whether it has
been activated in your absence.  I have been able to trace every alarm to it's
cause and it was not a false alarm.
I guess it would be possible depending on the vehicle.  My Syclone is so tight
in the engine compartment that it would be tough to do this.  There are
supplemental power supplies you can put on with this Viper alarm, but I don't
have one.  I really think that if someone wants my car that bad, the alarm
won't keep them from it, even with a supplemental power supply.

This is primarily for convertibles.  I have a convertible and have looked at
this feature in detail.  Alpine actually makes a better radar unit if you want
to get one of these.  It has zones in it that can be shut down independently so
that if one side of your car has pedestrian traffic or something else that
would trigger an alarm, it shuts down the zone, or rather, pulls it in tighter.
I don't see the real benefit to these unless you have a convertible that you
leave the top down on.

Avoid the voice alarm that can be added to the radar package.  It talks to
people as they walk by.  I saw one installed on a Lotus Esprit.  The kids would
taunt it seeing how close they could get before it 'warned' them to get back. 
The owner finally disabled it, which defeats the purpose in my mind.
I am real happy with my Viper.  One other feature I really like is you can tune
it to your preferences.  You can have it arm passively or not.  You can disable
the chirp for arming/disarming.  You can have it lock/unlock the doors when the
alarm is armed/disarmed.  

I like these features.  I hate the chirp when the alarm arms/disarms, so mine
flashes the lights only.  I like the door lock feature, although I have to be
careful to take my keys with me because it doesn't know if you have left your
keys in the car when it passively arms and locks the doors.  But, if you are
meticulous about taking your keys with you, it takes care of the rest.

I looked seriously at the Alpine system too.  It is a real nice system, but
more money and it has a motion sensor standard instead of the shock sensor. 
The shock sensor is better....and the Viper shock sensor is better (2 cycle)
than the optional Alpine one, IMHO.  I think the Viper gives you a lot of good
value for the money.  But it isn't absolutely tamperproof.  No system is. 
Except maybe the one that James Bond had on his Lotus in For Your Eyes Only. 
Anyone know where we can get one of those installed?  Maybe that was what they
had in the van in the World Trade Center, huh?>
