A text-message to your stolen car, ordering it to shut down, is being heralded as a new way to thwart auto thefts.

Engineering students at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon say they have developed a program that integrates cellphone technology and the computer system on most cars.

Michael Siourounis and two classmates devised the system as a project for their fourth-year studies.

"You text your vehicle and inform it that it has been stolen," Siourounis explained in describing how their program works. "It will actually initiate a sequence of events that causes the car's internal computers, that we don't modify at all, to think that the car has overheated."

Shea Pederson, one of the other engineering students on the project, said the first signal to the engine tells it to go into a limited power mode.

"We have it set for 30 seconds," Pederson said of the reduced power. "You can only go about 30 kilometres an hour, and basically you are running on half the cylinders in your car."

Pederson said the reduced power provides a measure of safety to the driver.

"That 30 seconds gives them the time — the thief or whoever — time to pull over. And then after that it will shut the car down right away."

The next signal comes from the car back to the cellphone, the students said.

"Then an onboard GPS [global positioning system] unit on our device texts you back the location of the vehicle," Siourounis said. "So then you can send the police to go recover it or go get it yourself," he added.

Siourounis said their system involves installing a device on your car, to relay the key communications between the vehicle and the cellphone.

He said the prototype cost about $600, but expected the price would come down if it were commercialized.