PIN to start car engine, for a small price: £299 fitted, labour included

Your vehicle already asks one question before it will start: is a valid key present. PIN to start adds a second question with a completely separate answer, one you hold rather than the fob in your pocket. Answer the first question and you have solved nothing about the second.

That is the whole point. The theft methods that empty UK driveways work by answering question one convincingly. A relay attack stretches the signal from a fob sitting in your hallway until the vehicle believes the driver has walked up to it. A cloning device plugged into the diagnostic socket writes a fresh key the vehicle then treats as genuine. In both cases the factory immobiliser does exactly what it was built to do. It just does it for somebody else.

The numbers are not small. DVLA figures obtained under a Freedom of Information request and analysed by What Car? recorded 61,343 vehicles reported stolen in 2024, with 4,446 Ford Fiestas taken in that single year. Ordinary vehicles, ordinary streets.

There is also a cost that does not appear on the invoice, and it is the one worth thinking about hardest: what the vehicle is worth to you if it goes. Not only the replacement, but the excess, the renewal premium afterwards, the week of borrowed cars and the tools or stock that were in the back of the van at the time.

Set against that, a one off £299 with no subscription attached is a straightforward decision for most owners. There is no monthly fee on CAN-IMMO. You pay once, the module lives in the vehicle, and it keeps holding the start condition for as long as it is fitted.

If your vehicle is worth less than the fitting price and still uses a traditional metal key with no keyless entry, your risk profile is different and we will say so on the phone rather than take the booking. We would rather lose the job than fit something you did not need.

CAN-IMMO reads two CAN bus lines plus the LIN bus and the ADC bus. That is how it recognises legitimate activity on your particular make and model rather than guessing from voltage alone. Programming is vehicle specific, and the unit can be reprogrammed for a different vehicle later.

You authorise it in one of three ways. A code entered on buttons the vehicle already has, such as steering wheel or climate controls, so there is no keypad to find and nothing added to the dashboard. The LockCar app over Bluetooth, on Android or iPhone. Or an optional proximity tag that releases the vehicle as you walk up, with the code kept as the backup for the day your phone is flat. Full setup detail sits in the CAN-IMMO guide and user manual.

There are no LEDs and no visible components, so somebody searching a dark cabin has nothing to find and no obvious wire to cut. Service and valet mode lets you hand the vehicle to a garage without handing over your security, and anti hijack is built in. We show you both before we leave.

It is not a tracker. It will not tell you where the vehicle went, because that is a different job done by different hardware. If you want tracking as well, that is the One Plus at £699 rather than an add on to CAN-IMMO.

It does not stop anyone breaking a window to reach what is inside. Glass is glass, and no electronic security changes that. Take valuables out of the cabin and out of the load area overnight.

It does nothing about a flatbed and a winch, which is how a determined crew takes a vehicle they cannot start. What it does remove is the quiet, one minute, drive it away theft that accounts for most of what happens on UK driveways.

And it may not change your premium. Ring your insurer before you book, ask whether they recognise a covert immobiliser, and if the answer is no and you were only fitting it for the discount, keep the £299.