Bulldog or ProStart car starter

I see they are both on sale in the paper are they both good?  I'm looking for a basic one to start my 1998 pontiac transport.    Which has better instructiosn and web support for finding and locating the needed wires???  

I installed the ProStart and some other brand  back in the early 90's but back then product support was poor and you were on your own when it came to figuring things out.   Been away from the trade for years and was wondering if these remote car starter manufactures have improved any with fixes, tips  and trouble shooting help?

in my expreiance (i nistalled a bull dog in a 96 grand charokkee) it was very easy, and it had good instuctions, on-line and with it.  But the way things are today i think that all componys have evalved in the way of consumer conveniance/help. so, i dont think that there is a real difference, its just a mater of personal prefference

-Bergwin

I would agree with Velocity on this point.  These two type of car starter are not reliable.....I personally would not install these units because I know I will have to replace them shortly.  Not worth my time or my customer's time!

Good grief I did some searching on the net and there must be 50 or more different car starter companies out there!!!

I found out what other brand I used to install and it was the autoCommand by Designtech.  I remember a few of  those gave as some greif especailly the earlier ones.  The company made you open them up and take out diodes and what not!  The ProStarts were cheaper but a bit easier to install when doing  a simple install.

I'm no expert I was an Auto tech and we did them on flat rate and it got to be that we didn't  like to bother.  It's not like we did them every day, sure once you did a certain make of car next time it was easy but when you get a different car every time it wasn't so  great!  What was really fun is when some customer tried to do it first then gave up and  brought  you in  a mess of wires to figure out and put back correctly! ! Some people really should not be allowed to work under the dash of cars!! 

So what are some of the "better" brands out now a days if the Prostarts &  Bulldogs are on the bottom end of the scale? From surfing the web is seems there is some good and negative on them all.

we sell & install Clifford, Autostart, Compustar, Valet & Avital... all are of a great quality and reliability...... and may be brands you want to take a look at....

i always ask my customers " you didnt buy a cheap car, why do you want a cheap remote starter?"

If I remeber right ProStart and AstroStart  used to be the same thing made by the same company  just boxed different. I remeber I had a guy bring an Astrostart in to intall and  when I opened the box  I was surpised to see it was just like the Prostarts I had put in.  Had the same hardware and instructions too I think.

This would have been back in  around 1995 they may have changed now.

actually Pro Start is made by AutoStart..... not Astro

and Autostart is our entry level unit... we usually sell up to better quality from there.....

Oh thats right ProStart = AutoStart I got mixed up I knew it was one of them. There is just so darn many of them on the market!!  I talked to my Brother-inlaw last night who is a parts Manager at an Accura dealer.  He says the remote starts no matter what brand seem to give them trouble  at times!  He got fed up with the one company they were sending thier new cars out too. This place is very busy  and is  "the place" to get this sort of thing done at. But he figures they got so big and so busy they are not doing good work anymore.  He switched to a closer shop and things have being going smoother and better service.  Nothing worse then selling some lady a  $50,000 car and have her on the ph. Bitching that her horn won't stop honking!!

I'm at a stand-still with only installing the basic 1st half of my wifes '98 Olds Intrigue remote starter lit.......now , due to a PasLock system, I need to fiquire out the needed resistance..is there a better way?? Can anybody help??

                          Jerald (Thank You)

555l by DEI. you don't need to find the resistance it does it for you

Stay away from Bulldog, the units are reliable but the remotes suck. The remotes on this things all work on the same frequency. I installed a starter/alarm combo on  a friends car (he is very cheap) and his remote could control his neighbor's alarm and vice-versa(his neighbor had a Bulldog alarm). That was funny one car would arm and the other disarm.

  We used to go to big parking lots and try the remotes to see how many cars had Bulldog products installed, and you would be amazed by how many we found.

Just to put my two cents in about starter quality ,I would recommend ctc's prostart and give the thumbs down to bulldog..I've probably done a couple of hundred prostart's since that model came out years ago and they have been very reliable ,especially the last few years with the newer design. I had almost half of the cheap bulldog's stop working within a year or had to replace it right away. I shudder when people bring them to me.They can be installed quicker but are cheesy...With prostart if you go to autostart.ca and look for wiring support all you have to do is entert he modules ser. num. and year make etc and you get an accurate wiring info with excellent screen shots of the vehicle's points of access.. I guess  whatever you are comfortable with  -go with that. I've gotten all the interface modules  that ive needed so far from ctc with no problems

bruc007,  I took a look around town at some other makes and models.  One store had UltraStarts but they are not too common locally I found.  After looking at a few different stores the  models I've come down to are an AutoStart 2300 or an AstroStart 2205 both are basic FM 2 way models with around 2000 feet of range.  There was only 2 prostarts at the CT by me. The one they had on sale this week for $50 and another model for $225.    They are not quite what I want.