GPS Trackers for Cars, Trucks, and Vans: The 2025 Buying Guide

Vehicles are an expensive investment. You need to protect them, whether you’re a private citizen or a business owner/operator. But short of posting a security guard, you’re not going to be able to watch over it 24/7 (and even a guard can’t be with the vehicle all the time).

That’s why GPS trackers are so valuable: they let you know exactly where the vehicle is at all times. Then you can go about your day, reassured that you’ll be notified the moment something unexpected happens. Businesses can also use GPS trackers for fleet management and to help streamline their operations.

In this buying guide, we’ll discuss what to look for in a GPS tracker for your car, van, or truck, and then talk about which of Spytec’s vehicle GPS trackers makes the most sense given your needs.

What are you using it for?
What should you look for in a GPS tracker?
Which GPS trackers do we recommend?

So let’s start with why you’re getting a GPS tracker and how that changes what you’re looking for.

Why do I need a GPS tracker?

GPS trackers are an active tracking device designed to transmit its location to a separate device, like your smartphone or computer. Like a traditional GPS device, it relies on the Global Positioning System’s network of satellites. But it’s not trying to help you navigate. Instead, it’s giving you a reliable estimate of where your vehicle is–whether you’re in it or not.

There are a few big reasons you might want to use a GPS tracker on your car:

Security

Let us be clear: a GPS tracker can’t prevent vehicle theft. It’s not a steering wheel lock or a wheel clamp. It can’t stop a thief from breaking into the vehicle and hotwiring it.

What it can do is help you get your vehicle back quickly and (we hope) safely. The main things you’re looking for in a tracker would be concealability, battery life, geofencing, and instant updates.

Concealability. Security-focused trackers need to be easy to hide. You don’t want a car thief to see your GPS tracker out in the open. They’d just disable or remove it. That means OBD trackers won’t be as effective as some of the other options.

Battery life. Some GPS trackers can run off the car’s electrical system, but portable ones, which are easier to hide, will need to be internally powered. That means an extended battery life so you don’t have to recharge every few days.

Geofencing. Some GPS trackers let you draw a digital boundary (aka geofencing) around your garage, parking lot, or vehicle yard. This lets you get notified whenever the car enters or leaves the area for some reason–like if a thief just stole the vehicle. It provides you with a timely warning so you can respond quickly and call the authorities while the vehicle is still on the move.

Instant alerts. If something were to happen to your car, you’d want to know immediately. Find a GPS tracker that doesn’t just do instant alerts; it should also do different types of alerts, like Ignition alerts, Movement, and Power Disconnection (in case a thief ripped out the tracker).

Given enough warning, you should be able to lead the police right to your car.

Vehicle recovery

Vehicle recovery is an obvious and logical step after security, but not all car recovery scenarios are theft-related.

If your company rents or leases vehicles, you’ll need an effective way to get them back if someone exceeds their return date or misses payments. Asides from concealability and battery life, which we’ve discussed above, the most important things for GPS trackers being used in vehicle recovery are:

Real-time updates. You can’t recover a vehicle if you don’t know exactly where it is. Most GPS trackers ping their location once every 5 seconds, which is fast enough to get an accurate fix on where they’re going. Even a tracker on Power Saving mode (once a minute or longer) is still accurate enough to be useful.

Live Link sharing. You’re not the one actually recovering the vehicle. You should be calling the cops. Companies repossessing vehicles should be sending tow trucks or recovery teams that specialize in these kinds of situations. A shareable Live Link would give them access to the tracking data that they need.

Fleet management

Theft prevention is part of fleet management, but by no means is it the only thing. Companies that want to get the most out of their fleet vehicles will need more than a GPS tracker that just pings its location.

Concealability isn’t as important when it comes to fleet management applications. Companies are required to disclose any tracking devices, and employees aren’t allowed to tamper with them.

Depending on the size of your fleet and what you’re trying to optimize, a GPS tracker might have the following requirements:

Easy install. When you’re managing a fleet of a dozen or even a hundred vehicles, you want a car tracker you can easily install. This lightens the load on your maintenance team, who will be responsible for multiple vehicles. It also allows them to quickly pull a tracker out of a vehicle going offline for service, and plugging it into a different vehicle. OBD trackers or hardwire vehicle trackers suit this purpose very well.

Data, data, data. Fleet managers live and breathe data. The more information a vehicle tracker can give them, the better. Go beyond location and look for trackers that can also give you odometer readings, driving behavior, trip length, and more.

Reports. Reporting tools can repackage the GPS tracking data into a more understandable (and more presentable) product. This can help make it easier to notice trends on vehicle usage like excessive trip length, average number of stops per trip, number of trips to the depot, and more.

Which GPS tracker should you buy?

If you’re still unsure about which Spytec GPS tracker is right for you, we’ve gone ahead and made recommendations based they how well they fit a specific use case.

Best vehicle tracker for security: Spytec Mini GPS

The Spytec Mini GPS tracker is your best choice for stealthy, hidden tracking capabilities. It’s small (only 3” tall) and light and also comes in a handy case with powerful magnets. These magnets can attach to out-of-the-way spots like the undercarriage or wheel well for hidden tracking capabilities.

The Spytec Mini GPS tracker is battery-powered, but don’t worry too much about recharging. This model has an average battery life of 14 days, which can be extended even further if you buy the special cases with 60-day or 90-day battery life extenders.

Best car tracker for fleet management: OBD GPS tracker

Fleet managers all over the US love the Spytec OBD GPS tracker thanks to its convenience, speed, and advanced capabilities. As an OBD tracker, it can be plugged into just about any vehicle that has an OBD II port–which is all of them.

Our Spytec OBD GPS tracker also has a 1-second update speed. This is incredibly fast compared to the usual 5 to 30 second updates in other GPS devices. And it doesn’t need to be recharged because the car is what powers it.

And being plugged into the OBD port gives the tracker access to things a Spytec Mini wouldn’t, like ignition status, unsafe driver habits, odometer, fuel consumption, and more.

Most balanced car GPS tracker: Spytec Swift

If you’re still concerned about security and function, but don’t want to keep recharging your GPS tracker every few days, then consider using the Spytec Swift GPS tracker.

This is GPS tracker plugs directly into your vehicle’s battery. It takes a bit more effort, but it’s still easy to install–-just attach the tracker’s lead wires to the car battery’s positive and negative terminals.

The benefit? Unlimited power for the tracker and it’s in the engine compartment, out of casual view from potential thieves.