A vehicle monitoring system prevents vehicle theft and unauthorized tampering by alerting the vehicle's owner of unexpected events. Alerts are provided to the owner within seconds of the occurrence while the owner is away from the vehicle. The vehicle monitoring can be set to automatically start whenever the vehicle is parked and the owner moves away to a specific distance. This allows the owner to set monitoring preferences once, after which the system automatically handles monitoring according to those preferences for future vehicle activities. The monitoring and alerting may be automatically disarmed when the vehicle owner again comes within the predetermined proximity of the vehicle. The monitoring may also be disarmed manually, such as when the owner lends the vehicle to another and does not need to track it. It also may be manually disarmed if the owner left his/her phone in a location far from the vehicle.