2000 dodge ram prestige

Hi i am new to this forum so not sure if i am where i should be. Anyway i have a 2000 ram with aftermarket prestige aps 996 i believe. I have had a few issues with it before. The guy i bought the truck from lost the fab thing or whatever its called. I want this system out of my truck but am scared to start cutting wires. My truck wont start and i tried doing the whole pull negative cable thing and hooking it back up with the key to run position. Didn't work so i thought it might be the starter. Turns out no after i put a new one in. The starter relay clicks but nothing happens for turning the motor over. Got a huge cluster of wires underneath my steering column. Not sure what to do and really want the thing gone. Some advice would be really awesome. Thanks, Ryan

We can start off easy.   Unfortunately there is no "cook-book" for R/S system removal. Each installer has his own
way to incorporate a system into any given vehicle.

If it is the after-market remote start system, the problem is usually a Starter Kill circuit. Without disturbing the "mess"
of wires under the dash too much, locate the trucks ignition harness in the steering column coming from the ignition
switch. It should be a bundle of wires that include Pink/Black, Red, Yellow, Blue, BLACK/ White and BLACK/ Orange wires.
Find the Yellow wire. That is the Starter wire. Use a Digital Multi Meter and connect it to the yellow wire very close
to the switch. Turn the key to Start and you should see +12V. Follow that wire down under the dash looking for a
cut / separation where the R/S installer cut the wire and added a Starter Kill circuit, usually a standard Bosch style
relay.

If you find this cut, you can easily reverse it, by removing the added wires and rejoining the two ends of the Yellow
Starter wire. A solder connection with quality electrical tape or heat shrink tube is best.

Additionally, you can download the entire R/S installation manual from the Audiovox WEB site. Here is a link :
https://techservices.audiovox.com/login.aspx   Just to the right of the LOGIN is the SIGN-UP link. Sign-up is free.



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Soldering is fun!

So there is a starter disable solenoid, but no yellow wire. Only orange, red, white, and black and what looks like a jumper from Orange to red or vise versa. There is a different solenoid that has yellow, white green and brown. The green wire on that says output dome light. Wonder if that could be the one that makes it flash? Thanks for the manual, will have to download that when i get the opportunity.

Ryan, you said you found a relay (you called it a solenoid, but close enough), with the following wires: red, orange, white, and black.

I think if you look more closely, you'll find that the white wire has a black stripe on it.

Anyway, those are the colors of the starter kill relay included with Audiovox systems.

So, going on what Kreg said above, coming from that relay, follow the black wire AND the WHITE/ black stripe wire. They should both go to the steering column wiring.

There, you'll most likely find that the installer cut one of the original Dodge wires in half, and then connected the WHITE/ black to one side of the Dodge wire he cut, and the black wire to the other half. (You will probably also see a thick yellow wire coming from the main 996 module in the mix there somewhere.)

Anyway, all you have to do is simply undo the "cutting in half" operation the installer did.

The long-term, best way to do this would be to follow all the way to the original Dodge wiring, completely disconnect the Audivox WHITE/ black and black wires, and connect the two halves of the Dodge wire back together like factory.

However, if you just want to make a quick test, just use a razor or something to strip some insulation off of the black and BLACK/ white wires coming from that relay. Then jump the two wires together with your fingers (or even a piece of scrap wire) and see if the car starts. Again, just do it this way for testing; you'll want to do a clean, complete job for reliability.

P.S. Have you found the small black, push-button valet switch? The APS996 came with an on/off toggle switch with a red handle, as well as a black push button. (The toggle is to disable the remote starter; you don't need to bother with that right now.)

Anyway, do the following, in the correct order:
1: Turn ignition on
2: Press and release valet button
3: Siren (if connected) chirps twice, parking lights (if connected) flash twice, APS996 brain makes two clicks inside.
4: Try to start engine.