General Chat

Has anyone else got one of these fitted. My car is parked in the locked garage. I find if I lock the car and leave it for longer than a couple of days the battery runs down. We are pretty certain it is the alarm, but why? Anyone know. I have had the car for 15 months and it has been pretty much the same since I had it.

just a thought, Ann,
does it do it if you DONT lock the car?


but a neighbour of ours had a similar problem........battery going flat.. but likely your problem is different.........her boot light wasnt switching off........

Bob

It doesn't run down so fast if we don't lock it when in the garage. And doesn't run down normally if driven every day. But it isn't driven evry day, if you see what I mean Bob. OH has been on all sorts of forums and it is a really complicated alarm. A good one if it doesn't flatten the battery as it has absolutely everything alarmed. When we change the battery we have to take it to a dealer who can keep the alarm connected to a battery while he changes the car battery. I would never advise buying something so complicated. It is not as if it is a new car, only worth a couple of thousand!!

Hi Ann,
If you have ruled out other sources of current drain as Bobtanian suggested, boot, interior light cooling fan staying on all the time (many are wired to run on after the ignition is switched off to cool the engine) then I would look at replacing the battery.

My daughter had a similar problem, the alarm would go off because the failing battery's change in voltage triggered the alarm, running it down further. It would charge up ok and start while it was in constant use but not hold a charge over a long period.

It's even possible that if the garage is not attached to the house the alarm is going off unnoticed and running the battery down further without you knowing.

Good luck,
Mayfield

PS Worth a try, some alarms like the one I have come with a service key that can be used to disable the alarm in order to exclude it completely for a few days, does yours have one perhaps?

Try Emailing the maker, meybe they can advise you.other than that if the battery is getting on a bit have it checked out one of the plates may have gone.**M**.

Ann, Try they may help.thay also service them .worth a try. **M**.

Thanks for all your comments. It is perhaps significant that our local garage who do all our repairs will have nothing to do with this alarm. We were going to change the battery a while back and OH took it to the place he gets our batteries from. They said it didn't need changing, it was OK when fully charged.

No we don't have a key for the alarm, whether the original owner did I don't know but she didn't even know the code that was used to set it. She did find the book.

We'd hear the alarm if it went off in the garage. (Well OH would, with my hearing problem I might not.

He has just found out that the alarm has a separate battery so is now wondering whether that is running down. We think we may have located somebody in Gloucester that deals with this particular alarm so if all else fails we will try them. And thanks Merlin for the suggestion of e mailing the firm, not sure if he has done that or not, I know he spent ages on various forums yesterday.

Thank you that is interesting CrumblingC will passit on to other half.

Car now fixed. Auto electrician spent 2 hours on it. The brake lights was the switch Sue. The rest goodness knows but he completely removed the alarm and fixed all the wiring, some of which he says was originally wired up wrong - probably when the alarm was fitted. so thanks for help and all well now (£65)

glad you is sorted, Ann, or rather, the car, is......

so I can nick it now, and the alarm wont go off??

LOL
My car has the battery under the passenger seat, and connections under the bonnet for jump starting, etc....(if my battery is disconnected all the dash settings go into cyber space,) so I connect a small battery to those if I need to take the battery out......

Bob

The BMW is a bit like that, Our last BMW the electrics failed when we were in South Wales. we hadn't had it long and it took ages to find the battery!

We do still have the Clifford alarm button on the dash, and there is a radio alarm LED which flashes. OH is going to rig up the LED on the Clifford alarm as well so nobody will know there isn't an alarm. I can also go back to using the crook lock.