"they would have all of the wheels off and gone before anybody could respond anyway."
I wouldn't be so sure about it. I heard stories (directly from friends, not only from the Internet) about thieves being stopped by a custom / non-standard / less known protection installed in a car. A thing that the thief does not know in advance and has to first figure out how to crack it. If the alarm goes off, it gives less time to crack the other security systems.
