How to Track A Car with a Cell Phone for Free [2023]

Usually, when someone searches “how to track my car with GPS”, they expect to get a list of expensive and sophisticated, cutting-edge technologies only seen in movies. With innovations in navigation, many classy and elegant cars already include GPS technology that actively tracks the four-wheeler’s movements. But what if your car does not have an in-built GPS tracking system? In this case, a smartphone is the perfect accessory to protect and keep tabs on your car and its occupants. In fact, it’s the cheapest way to GPS track a car.

Thanks to a cell phone, you can know your car’s real-time location and even where it’s been. On behalf of the HeyLocate team, we decided to try car GPS tracking with a mobile phone, and here what we have discovered. Read to the end to know mobile apps with GPS and additional tracking features.

How can smartphones be better than a tracker:

• it’s easier and faster;
• the cost of a used cell phone + low data plan of a tracking app is cheaper than the cost of most dedicated car GPS trackers. For example, the MaTrack costs $248 on Amazon, while the Dicsover It costs $329. A Garmin GPS tracker starts from $200 up to above $2500;
• smartphones perform well, regardless of where they are mounted on the vehicle, unlike many apps and small GPS trackers that require mounting on certain spots on the car to get a GPS signal.

“Car GPS trackers require physical installation in the vehicle, either by attaching them to a discreet location or integrating them into the car’s electrical system. This installation process often requires professional assistance.
While, cell phone GPS trackers are typically software applications that can be installed directly on the target smartphone. In most cases, users can download these apps from app stores and set them up easily without any technical expertise”.

Cheapest Way To GPS Track A Car with Your Phone

Here are free ways to track your car with your smartphone. Tracking your car works with another phone, maybe an old phone or a prepaid phone. Leave it in the car and then connect to a GPS tracking app that will help you keep tabs on the car.

These are the cheapest way to GPS track a car with your phone.

In-built Location Tracking of iPhone and Android

The inbuilt location tracking features on an Android or iOS device are helpful, especially if you forget where you have parked your car.

How to Use Find My App for iPhone

Before using Find My to find your car, you must turn on location services by going to Settings > Privacy&Security > Location Services.

If you have a second iPhone, you can keep it in a car and always view data from its location anytime.

Here’s how to use Find My to track a target device on a map:

Open Find My app > Open the Devices or items tab > Select the device to locate it on a map > Choose directions to see its location on a map.

Another method to track a car using iPhone is to use CarPlay or Bluetooth system. Once you disconnect from CarPlay or Bluetooth, your iPhone will drop a blue parked car pin on the map. You’ll only need to click on “Parked Car” below Siri suggestions to find the car’s location in a parking lot.

How to Use Find My Device for Android

The Find My Device app allows you to locate any Android device. You can add the device to see its current location as long as you have a Google account.

Before using Find My Device:

• the tracking phone needs to have location turned on;
• find My Device should be on;
• target device should have power and an internet connection;
• device should be visible on Google Play.

To track a car using Find My Device:

Go to android.com/find > Sign in to your Google account > Select the target device.

You will see the phone’s location on Google Maps. However, the location is usually the approximate location. You will need to zoom in to see the car’s exact location.

Life360

Life360 tracks the location of users in a Family Circle. The app follows the GPS location feature on the devices and transmits the location in real-time. You can also integrate it into various cars’ navigation systems, such as BMW.

Life360 can monitor the driver’s location and alert authorities in an emergency.

User Experience:

The first thing I did with Life360 was to download the app from Google Play Store. I also downloaded the app on my family members’ phones. After creating an account on Life360, I added each family member to my circle.

I used the app to track my teen driver by checking his phone’s location. Life360 showed his car’s location in real-time. The best feature of Life360 during my experimenting with it is geofencing, since I could create geofence zones and get notifications whenever my teen’s device left or entered a designated area.

I used the “add places” feature to add places on the map. I then chose the most common places for my teen and clicked the “bell” icon. Life360 allowed me to turn on arrival and departure notifications for them. Moreover, I liked the SOS functionality since it could be useful in an emergency. This means my son could send a notification to me and the authorities.

Life360 has a crash detection feature that detects when the phone has been in an accident. It can send a message to a designated emergency contact automatically.

I also liked the seven-day location history, location notifications for five places, and a driver’s report. The report highlighted how many times the person drives, their top speeds, and how many times they use their phone when driving.

The report also showed rapid accelerations and hard braking. Thus, it gave me peace of mind since I could see my teen’s driving habits and everyone else in my circle.

Try Life360

SpySat

Another app for tracking my car with my phone is spysat.eu app. You’ll need a tracking phone with built-in GPS and an internet connection to use it as a GPS tracking device. The app has great features when you need the option to track a car for free.

User Experience:

I downloaded the SpySat app on my Android phone and opened an account on spysat.eu to use the phone app for tracking. After creating an account, I clicked “Add Device” and added the mobile phone I wanted to use as a tracking GPS device.

I also logged into my account on the mobile device I downloaded SpySat, then placed it in the car I wished to track secretly from my son.

SpySat showed the real-time location of the target device on Google Maps. Unfortunately, my research indicated that it has no geofencing feature; hence I could not set specific zones and see when the car entered or left a location. However, it accurately showed the car’s exact location using the phone’s GPS.

Try SpySat

Find My Car App

Find My Car App is one of the most valuable GPS navigation apps for finding a car in a large parking lot or unfamiliar locations. It uses the phone’s GPS to locate the parked car.

User Experience:

After downloading the Find My Car app, I filled in the necessary details and tried it out. This app has options for “Park,” “Find my car”, and “Map my car”. I used the “Find my car” option to see how far my phone was from the car. Fortunately, it picked up the car’s location fast and gave me the distance in feet.

I like that it has two radar screens, so I could choose from the one that looks like military sonar and the other with an arrow pointing in the car’s direction.

During my testing, Find My Car app allowed me to enter a note about the parking location, which was useful if there was a delay in transmitting the car’s location. In addition, I could set how accurately I wanted the app to locate the car.

If I created a big miss zone, it would triangulate the car’s location faster than if I asked it to be accurate. It also told me when there was no GPS signal instead of making me walk aimlessly, trying to find a GPS signal.

Try Find My Car App

Track Your Car With Smartphone and Additional Benefits

Did you know that you can use any app with a tracking feature to see the car’s precise location automatically? These apps are usually family-tracking apps or apps for parental control.

Most of these apps allow geofencing, one of the important GPS tracking features. Why? Geofencing allows you to select significant places that you want to monitor. This way, you’ll receive notifications when the tracking phone leaves or enters a specific location.

Besides, as monitoring apps, they allow you to see almost everything on the other phone.

mSpy provides a detailed analysis and log of the phone’s activity. You can use its GPS phone tracker to monitor current location and for geofencing.

Eyezy is an outstanding phone monitoring software with one of the cheapest yearly plans – $9.99 per month. It can see a phone’s GPS location and location history.

uMobix GPS feature shows the exact location of the target specified by the latitude and longitude coordinates. It also represents last visited places and allows zooming on the map.

Hovervatch has a location tracking feature only for Android. The tracker uses Wi-Fi signals, cell towers and GPS to track the location of the monitored device.

XNSPY is a great app for monitoring employees on company devices. It has a business plan for monitoring all company devices at once.

Cocospy geofencing feature allows creating marked zones on the map. Receive alerts when they are transgressed.

With Flexispy you can configure update intervals to track cell phone locations on demand or automatically at any time interval you want.

Spyic is our favorite choice. View present and past GPS-and-Wi-Fi-based locations. Track movements with timestamps and see addresses and geographical coordinates.

Conclusion

Obviously, it is straightforward to track your car from your phone. From special apps to just apps for parental control – all worked well for GPS-tracking, as I could see during reviews.

It all depends on your additional necessities, whether you want to track your teen (we advice uMobix), partner (try Eyezy), employee (XNSPY goes for it) or elder parent (choose Cocospy), or maybe you need to track something more than just car location (mSpy will do everything). Now you know different services, so pick yours!