Dealership security
for the lot after close.

What does a dealership actually lose?

Parts, not whole cars. Washington recorded 17,499 vehicle thefts in 2025, 38 percent fewer than the year before and the lowest in over 23 years1_f84d11d6-6221-4e4b-aa19-e93021e73d7f.pdf). A dealer lot still loses what comes off a car in a few minutes: catalytic converters, wheels and tires, batteries and anything left in the cabin. It also loses keys, and parts from the parts room.

Washington tightened its scrap metal law in 2022 to make stolen catalytic converters harder to sell2. A converter is cut out in minutes. A car on blocks is a lost sale and a body shop bill. Both happen at night, in a back row, where one camera on the showroom corner sees nothing.

Cameras for the lot, the service drive and the parts room

Cameras go down every row, around the perimeter and on every vehicle exit. The dark back rows by the fence need them most, because that is where a car can be lifted without being seen from the street. Inside, the service drive, the parts counter, the parts room door, the cashier and the key cabinet each get a camera.

Lot cameras usually go on the light poles, which already have power and height. Where a pole cannot carry network cable, the cable plan comes first: a trench, an aerial run from the building, or a wireless bridge. Every view is checked after dark on the walk-through, because a row that looks covered at noon can be black under one failed pole light. The camera lines we install are on the security cameras page.

A plate for every car that leaves

A dedicated plate camera on every vehicle exit records the plate of every departing car. It is a different camera from the one that shows the scene: narrow, fixed on the spot where a car slows to turn out, and lit for night. We record it to a Milesight NVR with plate management, so a plate can be searched instead of scrubbed for3.

That matters in daylight too. A test drive that does not come back, or a car that leaves the service lot without paperwork, leaves a plate and a time on the recorder.

Keys: the cabinet logs it, the camera shows it

Your electronic key cabinet stays. It already controls who can take which key and writes down when. What it cannot record is the person standing in front of it. A camera on the cabinet closes that gap. When a key goes missing, the cabinet log gives the minute and the camera shows who took it.

A key on a hook in an open office is the easiest way to lose a whole car. If the lot still runs on hooks, the walk-through will say so.

Live guard monitoring on the lot

Live guard monitoring puts a remote guard behind the lot cameras after close. On-site analytics filter out rain, animals and headlights, so the guard sees people, not noise. When someone walks the rows at 2 a.m., the guard talks to them through a speaker at the camera and sounds a siren. If they stay, the guard calls police and your contact list with a description of what they are watching. The full service is on the remote video monitoring page.

As of September 2026 it costs about $150 to $200 per lens per month, quoted per site. We put it on the lot, perimeter and exit lenses, not on the showroom or the service drive, which see customers all day. An overnight guard is paid for every hour on site and walks one row at a time. Monitored cameras watch every monitored row at once.

What happens without monitoring

Without live guard monitoring, the cameras record and your phone gets an alert. Nobody talks to anyone. If the alert comes in while you are asleep, the footage waits for the morning, next to a car on blocks. Some dealers choose that, and it is cheaper. It should be a choice made knowing the gap.

Talk-down needs a speaker at the camera. Some cameras have one built in, such as the Ajax Superior BulletCam HLVF4. Others get a small PoE speaker mounted on the pole beside them. Camera audio recording stays off by default; the speaker carries the guard's voice.

The building: service, parts and offices

The service department, the parts room and the offices get an intrusion alarm of their own. We install Ajax: contacts on every door and bay door, motion inside, and MotionCam detectors that send a photo with the alarm. It is monitored month to month through Becklar, a UL-listed central station. Where a building camera should back the alarm with a clip, the video verified monitoring page explains how that works.

The customer lounge Wi-Fi and the service drive tablets ride on the same network as the cameras, on separate VLANs. That is covered on the business Wi-Fi page.

What drives the cost?

The proposal is itemized per camera and per monitored lens. What moves it: the size of the lot and the number of rows, how many poles can carry a camera, the number of vehicle exits, and the cable path from each pole back to the building. Trenching across a paved lot costs more than using a pole's existing conduit.

The recorder is sized for how many days of video you want to keep, and the internet upload has to carry the monitored lenses. Monitoring is a monthly line, per lens, on the same proposal.

Where we work

We install from 415 Railroad Ave S in Kent and cover south King County and Pierce County: Kent, Renton, Tukwila, Federal Way, Auburn, Tacoma, Puyallup, Sumner, Bonney Lake and Gig Harbor. Rivas Technology Group holds WA electrical contractor license RIVASGL799DR, active, bonded and insured5, and is an Ajax Systems dealer listed on ajax.systems. The rest of the commercial platform is on business security.