Urgent alarm issue (Dublin auto electrician needed?)

DelBoy Trotter

Hi folks, my girlfriend has a Honda CRZ and today it has developed an issue with the alarm. Our neighbour called into our apartment to let us know the alarm was going off (the car is on the other side of the building so we couldn't hear it). When I went down, it was no longer going off. I unlocked and locked the car again, and checked it a few times this afternoon and it didn't seem to be going off. My girlfriend drove the car this evening and the alarm seems to start going off within a couple of minutes of locking the car. It doesn't seem to go off every time it's locked though. I'm useless with electronics and have no idea what to do with it, I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that it doesn't go off during the night. Does anybody have any recommendations for an auto electrician in Dublin who might be able to look at this as soon as possible?

TherapyBoy

Is there a manual override on the alarm system or can you disable it old style by locking the car manually, putting the key in the door & turning it? If you can temporarily disable the alarm it’d stop drawing attention until you can get it properly sorted.

Next is to find out if the alarm is factory fitted from new by Honda or if it is an aftermarket alarm fitted afterwards by an auto-electrician. If it’s factory fitted you might need to take it to a Honda main dealer. If it’s an aftermarket system, let us know which side of Dublin you’re in & I could recommend someone for you to take it to.

Brian Scan

DelBoy Trotter wrote: »

Hi folks, my girlfriend has a Honda CRZ and today it has developed an issue with the alarm. Our neighbour called into our apartment to let us know the alarm was going off (the car is on the other side of the building so we couldn't hear it). When I went down, it was no longer going off. I unlocked and locked the car again, and checked it a few times this afternoon and it didn't seem to be going off. My girlfriend drove the car this evening and the alarm seems to start going off within a couple of minutes of locking the car. It doesn't seem to go off every time it's locked though. I'm useless with electronics and have no idea what to do with it, I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that it doesn't go off during the night. Does anybody have any recommendations for an auto electrician in Dublin who might be able to look at this as soon as possible?

Hamilton’s Ltd

6 Grantham Place, Camden Street
Dublin
Ireland

D08 DK76



01 4755157
info@hamiltonautoelectric.ie

 OPENING HOURS
Mon-Fri 9am–5:30pm

DelBoy Trotter

TherapyBoy wrote: »

Is there a manual override on the alarm system or can you disable it old style by locking the car manually, putting the key in the door & turning it? If you can temporarily disable the alarm it’d stop drawing attention until you can get it properly sorted.

Next is to find out if the alarm is factory fitted from new by Honda or if it is an aftermarket alarm fitted afterwards by an auto-electrician. If it’s factory fitted you might need to take it to a Honda main dealer. If it’s an aftermarket system, let us know which side of Dublin you’re in & I could recommend someone for you to take it to.

It's a factory Honda alarm. Unfortunately manually locking the car with the key in the door still arms the alarm , it was my first thought to get us through the night

TherapyBoy

Popping the bonnet, locking the car & then disconnecting the battery might stop it making noise but a lot of these alarm systems do have some sort of separate battery back-up. If it’s factory fitted check the instruction manual for the car to see if there’s a guide to a manual alarm override. Other than that you might just have to buy your neighbours some choccies to apologise for the loss of a nights sleep! 😂

DelBoy Trotter

TherapyBoy wrote: »

Popping the bonnet, locking the car & then disconnecting the battery might stop it making noise but a lot of these alarm systems do have some sort of separate battery back-up. If it’s factory fitted check the instruction manual for the car to see if there’s a guide to a manual alarm override. Other than that you might just have to buy your neighbours some choccies to apologise for the loss of a nights sleep! 😂

I can't see anything in the manual about manually overriding the alarm. Whatever about tonight, I've no idea how I'm going to get this sorted tomorrow :(

Would it be safe enough to just leave it unlocked overnight and work on it in the morning?

DelBoy Trotter

Deleted User wrote: »

Would it be safe enough to just leave it unlocked overnight and work on it in the morning?

Unfortunately not, and that's based on a coupe of Facebook groups of local estates which have seen a sharp rise in the number of random lads roaming the estate at night trying car doors to see if any are open

J.R.

Get your car battery checked.......could be the problem

https://www.crzforum.com/threads/2011-alarm-system-troubleshooting.69273/

If not then it could be the bonnet sensor - disconnect it and see if the alarm doesn't go off when it shouldn't. The door locks will still work like they should so you can lock and arm the alarm, with this sensor disconnected.

Atlantic Dawn

Could be a sensor jammed try the following...
Under the bonnet there may be a sensor which links to bonnet when it's raised to cause alarm to activate, it will look similar to the sensors on doors that light the interior light.
Each door and the boot will have similar sensors, see they are all clear, perhaps press them in the out to see they move freely.

They look something like this...


Search for this button to disable the interior sensors, this is used if you wanted to keep a dog in the car, might work...

DelBoy Trotter

J.R. wrote: »

Get your car battery checked.......could be the problem

https://www.crzforum.com/threads/2011-alarm-system-troubleshooting.69273/

If not then it could be the bonnet sensor - disconnect it and see if the alarm doesn't go off when it shouldn't. The door locks will still work like they should so you can lock and arm the alarm, with this sensor disconnected.

I was just reading that thread a while ago. I wonder how the bonnet sensor error was reproducible and they knew it was definitely the problem?

For the record, it turned out that there was an error in the hood latch sensor. It kept detecting intrusion and it was reproducible. Part and labor ran about $400

DelBoy Trotter

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

Could be a sensor jammed try the following...
Under the bonnet there may be a sensor which links to bonnet when it's raised to cause alarm to activate, it will look similar to the sensors on doors that light the interior light.
Each door and the boot will have similar sensors, see they are all clear, perhaps press them in the out to see they move freely.

They look something like this...

I will have a look for them in the morning. The interior light hasn't come on at all when it wasn't meant to, and there hasn't been a warning that the doors/bonnet/boot have been open

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

Search for this button to disable the interior sensors, this is used if you wanted to keep a dog in the car, might work...

I'm not sure if there is a button in her car for this

The alarm has gone off a number of times in the last hour, so I decided to chance disconnecting the negative terminal from the battery to see what would happen. It hasn't gone off since then, and there doesn't seem to be a backup battery for the alarm

5500

x2 re the batteries, ive seen newer Hondas of late giving the problem amongst others with a low battery charge if the car isn't driven much. The ultrasonic sensors is another one, watch out for a small fly or even a spider in the car, it doesn't take much to set them off

antodeco

Is there a key override under the bonnet for the alarm?

Hellrazer

If its the Honda radio that has the sat nav built in its because the radio software has gotten corrupted (the alarm is connected to the radio)

Its actually an easy fix. Hold down the power button on the radio until the radio reboots--keep your finger on the power button until you see the Honda badge and like a circle under it spinning.

Release the power button and your alarm problems should be gone.

Edit--I see you already disconnected the battery - that will also fix the problem as the radio has to reboot once the battery is reconnected.

DelBoy Trotter

antodeco wrote: »

Is there a key override under the bonnet for the alarm?

Nope

Hellrazer wrote: »

If its the Honda radio that has the sat nav built in its because the radio software has gotten corrupted (the alarm is connected to the radio)

Its actually an easy fix. Hold down the power button on the radio until the radio reboots--keep your finger on the power button until you see the Honda badge and like a circle under it spinning.

Release the power button and your alarm problems should be gone.

Edit--I see you already disconnected the battery - that will also fix the problem as the radio has to reboot once the battery is reconnected.

It's a standard Honda non-sat radio

Hellrazer

DelBoy Trotter wrote: »

It's a standard Honda non-sat radio

Is the screen like a tablet?

DelBoy Trotter

Hellrazer wrote: »

Is the screen like a tablet?

No, last post was meant to say non sat nav radio!

Hellrazer

Ill see if theres any technical bulletins when I get in this morning.

DelBoy Trotter

The car spent a day in a Honda garage, and the alarm didn’t go off once :mad:
They couldn’t find anything wrong with the sensors. They tested the battery and said the results were fine. But there was a low battery voltage error logged on the ECU, but it doesn’t give a date or time so it could be from any time. The battery did get drained about 2 months ago when the lights were left on, so that’s when the error could have been from.
Just to be safe, we got a new battery installed. But seeing as no faults were found, it’ll be just a waiting game to see if it happens again