Rest assured, I went ahead and did a search before going ahead and posting this question.


So my alarm is going COMPLETELY berserk. It's a viper alarm... I forgot the exact model #. Basically, it seems like whenever I happen to alarm my car when one of the passenger doors is still opened, it sets off the alarm and I can't disalarm it when I try to with the remote. I'm usually able to get it to somehow work after tweaking with it, but this time I can't seem to do ANYTHING to get it to stop going off.

All I can do is wait it out until the alarm turns off on its own, but that's not until 1-2 minutes of annoying alarms. Any suggestions on what to do? Even after letting the car sit for 2 hours, and trying to open it again... the alarm was set off. Does this mean that the alarm's brain is fried? Any tips would be greatly appreciated!

 

sounds like factory alarm is armed.

what happened is that the door lock wire was used when installing the viper, instead of the factory alarm wire.

when you arm your viper alarm with the door open, then close the door, it arms the factory alarm. when you disarm the viper, it will then set off the factory alarm. if this happens you can do one of 2 things, either use the factory key fob to disarm the factory alarm, or put the key in the drivers door and turn (i forget which direction) and this will shut the alarm off.

i for the longest time could not figure out why my alarm would go off if i disarmed or remote started it, but finally found out this was the case.

 

Thanks, lurch. My boyfriend figured out that there must have been a factory alarm on it because it was just a bunch of honking non-stop. The dealer didn't even tell me that there was a factory alarm on the car already!!! They just said it was a keyless entry remote. *eyeroll* Do you know how to disarm the factory alarm completely? I don't want this sort of stuff happening again... or having to worry about my car randomly setting off...

 

About every car with a "panic" button has an alarm as well. And never trust your dealer to know much about cars.

 

either the alarm has to be hooked up to the factory alarm arm/disarm wire, which isnt that hard to do, but hard to get to, or just dont hit the arm button on the viper remote until the doors are closed.

this is false

though this is so true.

i work in the specialty retailer industry for car electronics, so i know quite a bit about integration and what not in cars. had a customer get a remote start in a newer gm vehicle, and we had to install one of their keys in the car for it to work properly as there was a chip in the key.

the customer wanted to have extra keys, so they went to the dealer to purchase the keys. dealership (service/parts department) swore up and down that the key didnt have a chip in it. then proceded to charge the customer 40 bucks per key. then gave the customer the instructions on how to program their new "non chipped" keys to the vehicle.

thats why i deal with my mechanic at nucar mazda. my service writer is honest, knows cars, and has only 1 tech that he lets touch my car.

 

thats funny, i had this same problem not to long ago. i had to disconnect the battery so i could figure out the problem since i was getting a headache from the honking.

 

Haha... glad to know I'm not the only one who has suffered this headache!

Thanks again, lurch, for the advice.
I get so used to driving alone, that when there's someone else driving passenger, I practically forget to wait to arm my alarm... haha. I suck at life.