dei relays

This might be a really dumb question, but are the dei relays you get with an alarm the same as any other brand relay?Was checking to see if i had a bad relay for my remote start, and might of replaced the wrong one with a bosch relay and the alarm quit working in general.Well when i put the dei relay back in its spot, alarm proceeded to work again....thought that was kind of weird....Think i still have a bad relay so would like to replace it, but needed to know this first.Thanks alot.....shawn

Depends if the relay is polarised or not and coil current draw when energised

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WOW Sight and Sound
Maroochydore
Nothing is impossible!
Do it right the first time or don't do it at all.

Yeah, I've got a Bosch style relay from unknown manufacturer that requires over 200mA keep energized. 

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Kevin Pierson

As a general rule, most 30 amp automotive relays are the same and will work fine. HOWEVER, there are some exceptions, such as the coil resistance and contact configuration. I recently bought some standard (I thought) 30 amp, 5 terminal relays from AutoZone. They looked identical to the Bosch relays, but I found that they had 2 terminal 87's and no 87a. In other words, what would normally have been a normally closed contact between terminals 30 and 87a (that becomes open when the coil is energized) did not operate that way. On these relays, terminal 87 goes in and comes back out with on the other terminal 87 (that would normally be 87a) and does not break at all. It's just a loop.
In the application I was using, I needed a normally closed contact that opened when the relay was energized to break a circuit. It almost drove me crazy figuring out why the circuit wouldn't work right for me. I replaced those junk relays with the right kind and the problem was solved.

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The Badger

Definitely differences in relay quality out there, such as power draw, on resistance, current handling, contact material, etc.
A relay configured as a single throw doesn't necessarily mean it's junk, but having the same pin configuration like that does make for interesting problems if it's not caught in time.