Toyota's SOS saved/found my stolen V-ATP!

I wonder how much capability the Safety Connect system has compared to OnStar. I see in OnStar commercials they turn the hazard lights on a stolen car to confirm police are on the right car then they slow the engine down to safely bring the car to a stop and immobilize it to prevent a police pursuit. I know they can unlock the doors and I can imagine they can do just about everything else too like set off the alarm if you lost your car in a parking lot, etc. What exactly can Safety Connect do? Anyone know?

 

Bleh... I had already read about those features, but I was hoping there was more of a comparison to what OnStar could do... you would think that Safety Connect starting off after OnStar could take a system that already exists and improve upon it. Disappointing...

 

Let's see Onstar charges $18.95 a month or $199.00 a year, they have been around since 1995. Onstar did not begin the vehicle slow down method until 2009. One should also note that the vehicle slowdown and ignition lock only works on a FEW select GM 2009 and 2010 models and is NOT avaliable in the entire line on OnStar equipped vehicles. Also not avaliable for ANY models built before MY 2009.

Safety connect started less than 60 days ago. Toyota started with more features than OnStar when it began. Toyota has an ongoing upgrade program in the next few years.

So in the five years Toyota's safety connect will be expanding its capabilities with a five year subscription cost of $643.77 with the multi year discount. While Onstar will cost $995.00 for the same time period. (not including turn by turn navigation) That's a price difference of $351.23 over 5 years.

While we're at it, did you know that anyone that has an OnStar system that has a 1995-2003 model their Onstar has been disabled and cannot be upgraded? Anyone with an Onstar equipped GM vehicle 2005 to 2003 had to pay a $200.00 equipment upgrade to keep their Onstar working.

Also the $199 subscription does NOT include OnStar's turn by turn nav. That's an extra $100.00 per year.

Now how's that for comparing OnStar to Safety Connect?

 

I wonder if you can just activate the safety connect if you car happens to get stolen like R2Pre2 did and not bother with the safety connect until then if it should ever happen. I don't know that I'd pay for the safety connect service subscription unless my car turned up missing one day if it could be activated just to recover the car. It's rather unlikely it would ever be stolen, it's always in the garage at home and in a secure parking lot at work. I wouldn't mind having the subscription once more features are available like OnStar.

 

I also have the SOS. Did not get the after-market LoJack that I got for my Gen2. Also did not get the Karr alarm that I had on my Gen2 that never worked well after three visits by technicians in the parking lot at my work, had boobytrap false alarms that drove me nuts. Does anybody have comparision with LoJack for price and capabilities?