It’s a sad day when we even have to think about fitting products like this anti-hijack/engine immobiliser to our scooters.
With an ever-growing motorcycle theft epidemic and thieves taking to bike jacking with increasing frequency that time has come, I’m afraid. As an example a Vespa GTS rider was hijacked in a small town close to me a few weeks ago and I live in a fairly quiet rural area. One thing you can say about StopMyEngine is that it does exactly what it says on the box. Your bike/scooter is hijacked from you and less than 30 seconds later StopMyEngine has literally stopped the thief in his tracks.
£3 million worth of bikes stolen per month
A recent survey undertaken by the National Crime Intelligence Service (NCIS) revealed that £3 million worth of motorcycles/scooters are stolen from UK streets every month. 80% of those thefts occur at the owner’s property and it takes on average just 20 seconds for your pride and joy to vanish into thin air. 60% of those stolen will never be recovered. That’s why it’s imperative to do all you can to make it hard for them to steal in the first place and to give you the best chance of recovering it quickly if it does go missing.
StopMyEngine
This ingenious box of tricks is an e-marked security device that has been developed by UK company, Bike Angel and connects your vehicle via Bluetooth to your smartphone. StopMyEngine is designed to safely stop your vehicle once it has exceeded the standard smartphone Bluetooth range (approximately 30 metres).
Audible warning
Once the scooter is ridden away and it loses Bluetooth connection to your device, the engine starts to play up, imagine it going into ever-increasing limp mode over a 30-second period, that’s how it feels. Then it cuts out. With the bike now immobile and the engine dead, the horn starts blaring to draw extra attention to the thief. The panicked scoundrel will almost certainly do a runner leaving your scooter at the side of the road. You return to your scooter, your phone will auto-connect and your bike can be restarted. StopMyEngine means YOU ACTUALLY RETRIEVE YOUR BIKE! But perhaps the biggest safety feature of StopMyEngine is the reduction of the all-round physical danger of a hijack situation, you don’t need to fight your hijacker to save your bike. You know it’s going to stop 30 seconds down the road anyway!
What can I fit it to?
To fit one of these you need a vehicle with a 12v DC supply. It can also be fitted to motorcycles/cars/vans/motorhomes etc. That includes Vespa PX Disc/Lambretta with 12v and battery, all modern scooters etc.
How hard is it to fit?
If you have a basic understanding of vehicle electrics and can use a soldering iron and multi-meter fitting is fairly straightforward. If not we suggest letting a local auto electrician, friend or scooter shop fit it for you.
Where should it be located?
Where you locate/hide the device is important so you’ll most likely have to remove some bodywork. We fitted StopMyEngine to a Vespa GTS at Midland Scooter Centre (you can buy and have one fitted there) and had to remove the glovebox and headset to access the wiring we needed.
Wiring
The device has five wires to connect and comes with full instructions.
Pink = Vehicle ignition
Black = Earth
White = Horn positive (out)
Green = Chosen engine power/earth feed source
Blue = Chosen engine power/earth feed
Green and blue basically go into your engine kill switch.
Fitting
- On the GTS we started by removing the glovebox, then fitted the white wire to the horn positive out
- Next, we found an earthing point and connected to that
- Using some decent 3M double-sided sticky pads we mounted the box to the frame near to the horn
- We removed the wiring from the back of the ignition switch and spliced and soldered the pink onto that to give us a switched live
- The green and blue wires are quite heavy-duty (StopMyEngine is designed for cars/vans etc. as well as scooters). Due to the position we were mounting the box in and because the thick wires wouldn’t go into the kill switch we had to extend those two wires using some lighter gauge cable to allow it to reach up to the kill switch
- With the GTS headset plastics removed, we fed the new wires up into the headset and soldered them to the terminals in the kill switch
- There’s a code input button on the device itself to set the various functions (all covered in the instructions) as well as a remote button on a length of cable if you’re hiding the box out of reach on your vehicle
- We decided to mount the remote button on the left knee pad so drilled it out to around 21mm using a step drill
- Then we fitted the button to the knee pad, fed the wire through and connected it to the main StopMyEngine box
Setting it up
With everything connected, we moved on to setting it up. If you can manage to find a device using Bluetooth on your phone you won’t have a problem with this bit.
Your horn will be sounding quite a lot though so we suggest you muffle it by covering it with a cloth.
- Simply open Bluetooth settings on your phone, turn your ignition to ‘on’ and add StopMyEngine to your list of saved devices. Your horn will sound twice to confirm the connection.
- The device comes with a factory-set 2-digit security code which you should change on installation, begin by pressing the remote button 9 times – the horn will sound 9 times to confirm.
- Then input the factory-set 2-digit security code one digit at a time. The horn will repeat each selection.
- IMMEDIATELY AFTER, enter your own new 2-digit security code one digit at a time. The horn will beep after each digit, so for instance, if you choose 7-1 enter 7 and you’ll hear seven beeps, then enter 1 followed by a single beep. You’ll then hear one longer beep to confirm your code has been set.
- Your code can be changed at any time but for security reasons can only be done if you’re connected via Bluetooth to your device.
Setting the device
To arm anti-hijack simply turn on the ignition and press the button 3 times then start your engine. Once set it will default to ‘On’ each time you start the scooter.
Testing it
Start the vehicle, and get the engine running at medium revs then turn off Bluetooth on your phone. Seven seconds later the engine will begin to cut out, 20 seconds after that it cuts out completely and the horn sounds for three minutes.
Turn Bluetooth back on and let it connect. The horn will stop and the scooter can be ridden normally again.
Override
If you have the code there are ways to override it as well, for instance, if your scooter is going in for a service or if your phone battery dies.
What do we think?
It’s not often a piece of tech is simple to set up and operate straight out of the box but this device is very user-friendly. We had it up and running within a couple of minutes of finishing the wiring.
I’ve been using it on my own GTS for a few weeks now and I’m very impressed. It does exactly what it’s meant to do. I’m not particularly worried about getting ‘scooter jacked’ but this device provides the best chance of getting the scooter back if it ever happened. It also serves as an added immobiliser so would stop a stolen scooter being started and ridden away.
A thief won’t be aware you’ve got one of these fitted and certainly won’t know about it until he’s ridden away from you (if it’s been hijacked). And with the bike immobilised and the horn blaring away in the street, he’s hardly going to begin investigating how to get the bike up and running again!
Who should fit one?
I’d say anybody with a modern bike/vehicle worth stealing and particularly owners of scooters like the GTS and TMAX should think about fitting one, especially if they live in or ride through high-crime areas. StopMyEngine gives you that added peace of mind. Fleet and delivery vehicle owners should also fit StopMyEngine as they’re also likely candidates for a theft of this type.
Key points
- Simple to fit and operate
- Can’t be hot-wired
- The constant horn alarm only adds to the thief’s disorientation
- Takes the fight or flight decision out of a dangerous situation
- Expensive immobilisers can be overridden now and trackers only tell you where your stolen vehicle is headed
- StopMyEngine actually stops the vehicle within a 30-second radius, offering you the all-important retrievability factor
- Doesn’t drain your battery
- It’s very affordable
- What’s not to like!
Where can I buy one from?
We’re now stocking and supplying these through our SLUK Shop. Retail price is £150 (plus VAT), we’ve got a SLUK offer on them at £125. They can be fitted at home or by your local scooter shop/auto electrician.
