trikoid

Two problems, and I'll bet they are related:

1. While it is working right now, my alarm beeps here and there, even with the car on, even when driving down the road. Sometimes it stays on solid, and sometimes it squeaks on and blips a little like an intermittent connection. I've read that the contacts rust out somewhere. Where is that connection, and can I work on that myself, like maybe get my solder iron out and go for it? Where it the item located I need to worry about?

I did wiggle the 8,9,41 fuses and I haven't had a problem in two days now, so maybe that was it? (I remember this from when my stereo just stopped working one day, and I just had to wiggle a fuse!)


2. As of this morning (and possibly earlier), it now emits a constant beeping when I lock/unlock. The beep is not very loud, and it comes from the passenger front under the car. It beeps on for 1.5 seconds, and silent for 0.5 seconds, repeats for a minute or two. It does this every time I lock or unlock it. The car is clearly indicating some sort of error message, but I don't know what.

I checked the battery voltage while it's beeping, and it is 12.55V. That's in the good range, right?

Final note: this all came to light after a two week trip with the car in my garage the whole time.

Chi500

I had the same thing happen to my '03 500. There is another battery, aside from the main battery, that needs to be replaced. I forget what it's called, but its for some sort of unit for the alarm. They replaced it under warranty for me when it happened.

trikoid

Did you have both of my problems, or just the beeping?

I gonna take a guess that the beeping is indicating that the secondary battery is toast. Any chance if anyone knows how to take it out, and replace it?

Where is that alarm speaker and alarm system? If I'm curious and want to take a look at it, where is it, and how do I take a look at it?

Oh yeah, and the alarm went off for my wife last night, so my fuse wiggling didn't fix it.

John

Chi500

Sorry I forgot to mention that it was the second problem you described.

trikoid

Third problem/symptom:
This morning, I unlocked the car to get in, and the alarm emitted a solid on beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep sound for about 3 minutes solid. It was pretty loud and annoying, but not quite as loud as the normal alarm system.

So the car wins. I brought it into the dealership this morning. Now waiting to see what my $99 diag costs will figure out for me.

I'll let you all know what happens, but I'd welcome any theories so I can have a good idea of what to expect.

trikoid

Total cost: $210. They replaced the "siren" (I don't know if they called it a "siren module", but its part cost was only $54, plus 1.5 hours labor.

So far so good. I hope the first two problems are fixed by it too.

So that's it. I'll post a follow up if it didn't fix the problem.

And by the way, my car has ~56000 miles on it, and it went through a salty New Hampshire winter this past season. I'm hoping these things are resilient enough to not care about salt too much.

John