2003 Ford Focus and Avital 5105L

Ok Got a lot to report this time. So I tore out all the diodes and did a quick check. Sure enough the door triggers are going TO the GEM not FROM it. I believe this confirms every single one of the trigger diodes were in fact backwards. Im going to take a smoke break and then I will reinstall them in the opposite orientation. Im hopeful this will take care of most of the the remaining problems. I'll let you know soon enough. Please allow me to put this here for the next guy so he can do it right the first time. Ill remove it if my hunch proves wrong. Also I believe the "door supervision" is working, but there does seem to be a tiny issue. The interior lights fade in and out from the factory, and apparently this is the same for when the supervision is alerting. unfortunately instead of the on/off/on/off I was hoping for, I get more of a dim/bright/dim/dark/dim/bright effect. It reminds me of when you have too much amplifier and no cap and the subwoofer hits. It honestly looks more like I am having electrical problems more than a intended effect lol. Anything I can do here? I'm afraid I'm limited to fords design. ok well back to it. Ill hopefully have more good news soon!

Ok at this point I think I have an evil spirit *ing with me. Yesterday as I was reinstalling the diodes I decided to do the drivers door last for a few reasons. 1) I had to also tie in the unlock signal to it, and 2) thats the only door that was open (I was laying across the seats to rewire the trigger diodes), and I knew if it was the last wire I installed, and my theory was right about the diodes, when I install the last diode and touch the wires together, the interior light should finally come back on after days of not working, and triumphantly indicate a correct install. Im a goob, I know, but for me, its those moments that make you feel better about all the trouble that now finally has passed. Plus of course it means my hunch was right. So as I had hoped for, as soon as the copper wires touched each other I got my door activated interior light back! I was so excited I immediately shut the doors and set the alarm. As you can probably guess it didnt before. When the alarm was set, opening and closing the doors had no effect on the armed alarm, or the interior light. I actually realized that the other day when I set the alarm off and "couldnt get it to stop" it was because of the shock sensor when i shut the door, not me triggering it with the door trigger. Anyways after I set the alarm I opened the door from the inside and it went off as it should! I checked every door, all doors were now communicating correctly with the Avital. Everything but the trunk trigger was working for the first time. I bet I armed and disarmed the unit ten times. I should also go ahead and mention the communication between the remote and the brain isnt the best. Quite often I have to hit the buttons twice to get it to register. Any of them, Lock, unlock, sometimes I will hit the button and nothing will happen. I dont know if im hitting the button too fast or whatever, more time will tell. I still have 1 final undone wire... the dreaded trunk pin. I had considered leaving this undone since you cant open the trunk anyway without opening another door, or using the fob.. but since I had just had a major accomplishment, I was feeling thorough. I decided to re probe the BLACK/YELLOW wires in the drivers kick one last time in hopes of finding the right one. I even found 2 more to strip and check! I think that makes a total of 4 BLACK/YELLOW wires in the upper kick behind the fuses, 3 BLACK/YELLOW wires at the lower kick down on the actual floor under the carpet, and it doesnt look like any of them are the same, but Im gonna check them all. Sadly all of them were constant grounds. 12v at rest on the DMM. I didnt want to give up just yet so I went to the passenger side and thought I would check there as well. Good news! More BLACK/YELLOW wires. I think between the kick panel and under the carpet beside the seat there were 6 more wires that I tested. All with the same result. 12v at rest. I give up for now lol. She just isnt ready to be found. Since the door triggers now work I can finally enter programming. I successfully initiated a tach learn. The first crank, the starter hung again, but the Avital cut itself off, re crunk and this time the starter disengaged as it was supposed to. It also stayed running which told me the Avital knew it didnt need to do the "3rd attempt" it is programmed to do if still unsuccessfully learned. I suppose this means the remote start side of the install is finally finished. So finally, almost everything is working! All doors unlock and lock, the system arms and disarms, the doors trigger correctly. I am finally ready to clean out all the wire bits and electrical tape thats now insulating my floorboards. There have been quite a few other components installed aside from the Avital system so I'm excited to start putting the car back in order. I push all the carpet back and clean everything up. I'm going to keep the panels off for a few days just to be sure, but everything else gets cleaned and setup like before. I take the car for a 5 mile victory lap. I still have a few more things to do to the car so I pull it back in the garage because Im ready to park it for the night, but just 1 more time lets see all that hard work paying off in action. I hit the R/S button, the car comes to life and starts, I hit it again, it dies. I hit the arm button and the car flashes and arms.. but I dont hear a clunk. I hit disarm, 2 flashes, no clunk. I go sit in the car and try again. more flashes, no clunks. Somehow someway the unlock/lock has now quit working. it still arms and disarms the Avital, but no locking or unlocking of any of the doors at all. I also notice the LED is blinking 3 times instead of its normal 2. It was like someone kicked the wind out of me. It was all working an hour ago, I hadn't even really worked on the drivers kick side. I was careful putting the carpet back in as well.. I tested the factory fob and it still locks and unlocks as expected. Defeated yet again, I grabbed a double and retired for the evening. How can 1 person be this unlucky? I also want to bring up the horn. Yesterday I couldn't find a single issue from the Avital to the horn wire. I honestly dont know why this alarm will not honk the horn on a single press, on a double press, a triple, or even just keep pressing it over and over.. Never a horn honk. That being said, the button on the wheel works, the panic on both fobs work, and if you set the alarm off too. It works at every occasion except arming. Could it be in a silent mode? So thats where we leave off for now, still incomplete. I pray that my remaining problems can be figured out quickly, maybe i'm in some kind off mode preventing the Avital from locking and unlocking the doors. That sounds silly to me, but 2 separate circuits are failing at the same time, even me knocking both the lock and unlock wires loose is jut too far fetched for me. Maybe all those arm and disarms with the door open before the test drive somehow programmed a problem. I'm not sure, all I know is for 20 minutes yesterday with the exception of the trunk pin, the install was working perfectly. This is going to be the longest thread on this site before I can sign off on it being complete! lmao (but sadly) I may try to enter programming today and play around. It may be helpful to reset the unit to factory if it has a way to do it. Wish me luck please lol!

No worries. If memory serves me the longest thread was 17 pages. I would check to see if the the 3 pin Avital lock harness didn't get unseated with the final placement / adjustments to the 5105 brain. For the Trunk Pin, I have a few sources that indicate a Black/Blue (-) in the DKP. Check in the trunk for the trunk light. That harness should have two wires. One is +12V constant and the other is the (-) trigger wire. You could extend the 5105 Trunk Pin wire to the trunk but finding it in the DKP would be easier. Almost there.Soldering is fun!

kreg357 wrote: No worries. If memory serves me the longest thread was 17 pages. ...

Current record is 50 pages.~wirewise~ Verify all wiring with your meter before making any connections!

50 ! WOW ! I stand corrected. For the Horn wire, with the lower steering column cover removed, there is a Black 9 Pin Plug centered under the middle of the column just to the right of the adjustment lever. The Black/Blue Horn wire is at Pin 6 and the only Black/Blue wire there. It is possible that the 5105, being an alarm system with a siren, does not use the horn like a regular RKE only system does. I'm not a big DEI person so perhaps another installer with more DEI experience can assist. Also check Menu 1 Item 13. You might try setting it to Option 2 or 3. This will get horn outputs for other than Full Alarm conditions.Soldering is fun!

Man, I am about to throw in the towel. I dont know what to do. I verified the plug was tight as it could be to the Avital, and I even checked for ground pulse at both connections AFTER the diodes. where it connects to the cars wires. Both get a momentary 12v signal when I hit the button. WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?!? The Avital is pulsing the wires correctly, but they are doing nothing. Whats interesting to me is using the factory fob doesnt supply that same wire with a ground pulse. I dont understand what is going on here. On the horn, I'm tied in to the wire youre referencing. It works, just doesn't chirp for arming or setting the menu options. I can confirm this is not correct as we have an Avital system on our other car. It is supposed to be honking for arming and menu selections. I also went into programming to make sure it was set to ON. I also went ahead and set the options for unlock to double pulse.. if i ever get the thing to work again. How can it honk for all the other stuff, but not chirps?!? EDIT We now have horn. Apparently you ae correct, by default the horn honk is only for full alarm. Changing that setting got us horn at every event as we are supposed to. Thank you for that. Oh and hello wirewise! welcome to the doodie show lol.

Double check your main Avital Chassis Ground connection. I always solder on a terminal ring and connect to solid chassis metal frame. Guess you could start checking Focus fuses but if the factory FOB and door buttons work the locks, I kinda doubt that's the issue. Perhaps the big reset is worth a try. Disconnect the negative lead on the car battery for 10 minutes. When you reconnect the battery, expect the Avital alarm to go off so be ready with the Avital FOB with an unlock. Maybe the GEM or BCM needs a reset.Soldering is fun!

So I found out that the door lock/unlock buttons, and the trunk pop button no longer works. That means most likely its not my loose wires that are the problem. Getting excited that this sounds like a blown fuse I researched the location of the power lock fuse. of course its the only one hidden on the back of the fuse box. It took me 20 minutes to get the fuse box out only to find the fuse wasn't blown. I wouldve bet a lot money that was my problem. I could cry now if my head wasnt already hurting. I'm taking another break.. I cant handle this level of aggravation lol.

ITS OVER!!! I guess we wont get to 50 pages after all. Thanks to god I finally found the issue to be a poorly seated GEM plug. The inside locks as well as the Avitals locking capabilities have been restored. My 1st remote start install is officially completed! I cant thank you enough for being a such a guiding light through this install from the very first post to the very last. Youve been there every step of the way to try and help and I can't express how humbled I am by your decision to keep coming back in here and checking on me. Im grateful for the kindness you've shown me. It has allowed me to take on a challenging and exciting opportunity to learn something new. I'm totally ramped up to do it again and see how much better my 2nd time will be in my truck... but maybe after a week or two of mental hibernation lol. I hope one day I can help someone as diligently as you have helped me. I am in your debts sir.

Congratulations!   You researched, learned, planned and stuck to the task. Every car is different and that gen Focus isn't the easiest as a first install. You found out that Directed install guides are hard to find, use a lot of insider terms and assume that you've been to their Pit Training schools. The next one will be easier. Enjoy your new and improved Focus!Soldering is fun!