Remote Starter Turning Car On By Itself

Hey all, I just had a remote starter put into my g/f's car. She has a 2002 Toyota Celica and we had an Avital remote starter system put in. Tonight we're laying in bed watching TV, when suddenly we hear the car turn itself on. I got and check and sure enough the cars running. We have one remote in the dresser, and the other downstairs, so we know nobody touched the remote. Any ideas?! -Anthony

How cold was it when this happened? How long has it been that cold? Some remote starts have a provision to occasionally start the vehicle when the temp drops below freezing for extended periods of time. I have no idea if your particular unit has that feature, just a thought.

The car hasn't moved since yesterday, but the temperatures here in Connecticut got up to about 45 degrees today. Currently it's reading 31 degrees.

Was it 31 when it started? Was it below 32 for a couple of hours when this happened? If it does it again, let it run and see if it times out like normal.

yeah the temperature has been holding fairly steady. Will do, this is the first time it's happened. Perhaps radio frequency?

some remote start (specially DEI) have timer mode this means if its activated it would start the car every 3hours or so depends on how it was program another thing could be like "am an idiot" said temperature smart start this means if the tempeture is below a cenrtain degree the rs would activated also the new DEI have a a feature that if the battery goes below 10.2 volts it would start the car so it could be a few thing.

I'm not sure if these starters have that feature. You can read more about them at www.avital.com I unfortunaly have to wait till the guy opens again on monday to see what the issue is unless we can figure it out. The temperature here has been holding around 30 degrees or so. I'm thinking perhaps a radio frequency that matches the remote starter may have triggered it.

Highly unlikely that a RF signal triggered it. I went to avital.com and then I realized I have no idea of the model of the remote start unit. I guess I will look at a few of them and see if any have a feature that would make the car start on it's own. Edit: Is it a 2-way unit that gives you time and temperature on the remote?

How old is this Avital system? Something that's been in there for a while, or it's new? What buttons to you push to remote start the car? Do you push the Lock and Unlock buttons at the same time, or is there another single button that you push twice to start the car? On the newer-style DEI remote starters, the type where you push a button twice to start..........if you push Lock and Unlock together, that puts it into timer mode, where it starts up all by itself every once in a while. Very poor design on DEI's part, and many people have had this happen to them. If you call the shop where you bought it, or look at the owner's manual, you should be able to find out how to turn timer mode back off.

chris is right, pushin a couple of buttons on the remote simultaneously, causes the starter to go into timer mode, where the car would start every 24 hours or so, it's a feature dei enabled in the event you were leaving your vehicle dormant for extended periods, the car starts so that your engine doesn't freeze over and battery doesn't discharge and things to that effect, check to see if it starts again aroun the same time tommorow, that way u'll know for sure. and post ur model af the alarm.commit your way to jehovah and he will act in your behalf. psalms 37:5