starter kill?

hey,
I had recently installed a remote starter/ alarm to my car.

everything is working great! *knock on wood*

My only question is in regards of the optional starter kill relay..I mean what is the purpose of this?

Is it so that if someone sets the alarm off they cannot start the car with the keys or remote starter?... or is there another purpose.

would you put this in personally?

thanks

If the alarm is triggered and going off, you will not be able to start the car. That is the purpose. It doesnt have anything to do with the remote starter. I would install one on an older vehicle that doesnt have a factory immobiliser, otherwise you "might" be safe. I dont know about all vehicles and if they can be easily stolen with an immobiliser in it. Im not a thief. I know on a Honda with an immobiliser....when you get a new key cut, it needs to be programmed and thats something the dealer has to do. Ive seen them do it before. Im sure other newer vehicles are like that too. These newer vehicles are harder to steal. Its not like you can just stick a screwdriver in the ignition cylinder and go.

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As long as the alarm is armed, it will not be able to start. It does not have to be sounding to stop the car from being started.

Also if you have a anti carjack feature on your alarm the starter kill must be installed for this to operate.

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electronics

starter kill can also override remote starting depending on whether or not it is installed before or after the starter connection from the remote starter.

in an alarm/remote starter combo they are almost always built in together using just 2 wires instead of 3. wired like a regular starter kill relay that just cuts the starter wire, one of the wires also doubles as the starter output for remote start.

a starter kill relay is almost useless against a knowledgeable thief if you have an older car without any kind of factory immobilizer system. if the connections and wires are not taped up or tied down in any way and everything is just hanging free and loose i would imagine it makes things a little bit easier for someone to hotwire your car by basically spelling out which wires do what. the point of car security is to make it as hard/painful as possible for the thief to get away with your stuff.

if you do have some sort of factory antitheft system in your car (by the way you never told us what year, make, and model your car was...) a starter kill isn't really that necessary unless you are using the old key-in-a-box bypass technique, just be sure to hide any type of valet switch that can be used to manually disarm the alarm or else someone could just find the key and disarm the alarm and actually drive off with your car, this includes many fords, hondas, and toyotas, and maybe some dodge/chrystler vehicles.

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