QuestionThe other day my car alarm went off on it's own and did so for about 2 hours without my knowledge. I haven't armed the thing in 2 years. It is a Prestige model aps15ch.
I ripped out the speaker wire under the hood to get it to shut up before I could figure out how to turn it off (I couldn't find my remote.) After charging my car and testing that the battery did indeed have charge by starting the car on it's own power, I left it for the night. The next morning the car was 100% dead again. I charged it again, drove it for half an hour, left it for an hour, and tried to start it again at which time it would not as the battery was mostly dead again.
That night, after charging it AGAIN (and verifying that it had a charge), I unhooked the negative side of the battery and left it overnight. The next day I hooked the battery back up and got in the car and heard a strange ticking sound coming from the alarm and the led was blinking. I later realized it re-arms itself and "goes off" (i'm assuming it's going off because i can't hear the speaker but I can hear ticking.) any time I disconnect and reconnect the battery. I tried putting it in "valet mode" but it just reset when i disconnected the battery.
I considered the possibility that the source of the battery drain might be elsewhere, but it seems pretty obvious that the car alarm going off for 2 hours was the cause and now my battery is shot because it died completely twice. I also heard from a friend today that keeping the positive side of the battery hooked up might still drain it slowly, is this true?
Also, when the alarm first started going off (I heard it and thought it was somebody else's) it wasn't the typical car alarm sound, but instead a rapid chirping that almost sounded like a woodpecker pecking a hollow tree. It did this 2 or more times for about 5 minutes each time spaced out by about 5 minutes.
So I guess my question has several parts:
1. Would the alarm be triggered BY low battery life? (i seem to remember running my battery down on previous occasions without an alarm problem)
2. Will an alarm going off for 2 hours kill the battery? What if the speaker is not hooked up?(I know this seems obvious, but...)
3. Have you heard of car alarms malfunctioning and constantly running out batteries? What about if only the positive side of the battery is hooked up?
4. Will removing my alarm or somehow indefinitely disabling it fix the battery drain problem? If so, how do I do this? (fuse?)
AnswerThat's hard to say. Pretty involved
to go into here so please, if you
would, restate this question in my installers
forum at www.installsupport.com and see if
my resident technicians there can assist
with this project.
They can go into a more detailed assistance
you might need on this project.
Good luck there.
ALARMTEK
CARALARMMAN.COM
