Troubleshooting remote start

Lets see, put a r/s keyless in a liberty with antigrind.  If the key was turned to the start position during remote start, the truck would shutdown.  Turned out something was wrong with the relay pack replaced and it worked fine.  Had an 04 Ford Super duty for an alarm r/s keyless.  Got it all hooked up and couldn't get the thing to program properly.  AFter swapping brains and the problem still existing, found out that the door trigger would only give a + signal for about 30 seconds.  So just tapped the door trigger to constant while programming.

-------------
Cause I'm So white and nerdy...
First Class Certi-fried installer

I have a long list but here's a few:

• installed an RS into a 2004 Windstar and remote starter would shut down byitself after 10 seconds or up to 2 minutes? Took me a couple of hours of trouble shooting cause in this particular case you would think that it's the tach signal that would not be correct, but infact it was the brake wire have 12 volts on the wire. The pedal was adjusted so close to the brake button that if you rocked the van it would engage the brake momentarily.
• There was a 2003 Mitsubishi Eclipse that the customer was having problems ( check engine light was going on )with and she brought the car to the dealership and of course the dealership told her that it was the RS/security system that I installed that was burning out the injector coils ( 2 of them to be exact ). They were going to void her warranty and I told her BS !! So I removed the system's fuses and cut the tach wire off the injector and reset the dummy light. A week later the dummy light went on again and the dealership kindly repaired the defective coils. We reinstalled the system and this has been over a year now without problems.
• Customer with w 2005 Nissan Xtrail came to me with this vehicle and I installed a basic RS into the vehicle and about 6 months later the customer comes to me and say " The dealership is going to void my warranty because I installed a RS into the vehicle. " I tell the customer to calm down and start from the beginning. He tells me that there has been problems with the vehicle that originated a couple months after the RS was installed and he went to the dealership to get the problems looked at. The list of things wrong was long and not matching typical RS problems that I've encountered or heard of. No dome light  ( but only the center dome light and the front dome light were not working witht he door ), no fog lights, OEM keyless entry didn't work ( but RS keyless still did ) & defrost was not working at all. He tells me that the dealership replaced the BCM with a new one and the problems were still there and that the RS is the culprit. I spend 2 hours on the vehicle testing for electrical breaks and residual power in the lines incase something might have feedback into the vehicle AND THEN I find the problem......... the stupid dealership didn't connect a plug at the BCM after they replaced it with a new one. There are 3 plugs on the back of the BCM and the middle one was just sitting there hanging ! I charged the customer and the customer sent a nasty letter to the dealership demanding that they pay the bill and they did without a fight and also apologized for the entire situation.

-------------
Jeff
Velocity Custom Home Theater
Mobile Audio/Video Specialist
Morden, Manitoba CANADA

OK heres one for ya, I installed a remote start on a 05 pontiac grand prix. Worked fine customer was happy. About 2 weeks later I get the phone call, my car won't start sometimes. I have her bring the car in I double checked everything with the install looks and works perfect while I have the car all day. She takes it home that night, I get another call 2 days later same problem. Dealer of course blames remote start. They scan the bcm or whatever and charge her 150 dollars for this, then they tell her have the remote start should betaken off its the problem....I oblige her and remove the main fuses, she called to let me know it was still happening, back to the dealer again  they claimed the remote start is causing it, she calls them out no remote start in the car anymore......They  "inspect" the car for problems for half a day. Out come its damaged as a result of the remote start and we won't warranty it, now shes close to a mental break down. I have her bring the car in, I tested everything and finally the root of all evil the positve terminal was never tightned down apparently the battery died after I installed the remote start and they swapped it out at the dealer........................Way to go boys. Moral of the story I now check the battery first. They did end up giving her money back for the "scan" and she turned them into the better business bureau after calling gm and filing a complaint.  

-------------

Here's another one for ya.   Got called in on my day off, because one of the other guys put in an r/s and couldn't get it to work properly.  I get there, and after about 20 minutes of poking around, turns out the harness that goes between the relay pack and the brain had come partly unplugged.  Plugged it in all the way and ran a zip tie around it and all was good.  By the way what best buy do you work at?

-------------
Cause I'm So white and nerdy...
First Class Certi-fried installer

My first ever remote start/alarm install was on my own car about 4 years ago. There are a lot of things I'd do differently if I were doing it now but I only made one major mistake. It took me a while to figure out what the error was but here are the symptoms:
--Dead battery after long period with the alarm armed
--If you remote-started the car with the alarm armed, the parking lights would shut off at the end of the run time but the engine would keep running. It would immediately turn off if you disarmed the alarm.
Just for fun, I'll see if you troubleshooters can figure out what I did wrong. I still have the car (97 Taurus) and haven't had any more problems with the alarm since I fixed that one issue.

kaezoo wrote:

---

My first ever remote start/alarm install was on my own car about 4 years ago. There are a lot of things I'd do differently if I were doing it now but I only made one major mistake. It took me a while to figure out what the error was but here are the symptoms:
--Dead battery after long period with the alarm armed
--If you remote-started the car with the alarm armed, the parking lights would shut off at the end of the run time but the engine would keep running. It would immediately turn off if you disarmed the alarm.
Just for fun, I'll see if you troubleshooters can figure out what I did wrong. I still have the car (97 Taurus) and haven't had any more problems with the alarm since I fixed that one issue.

---

I'm going to guess it had something to do with the starter kill being hooked up wrong.

-------------
Cause I'm So white and nerdy...
First Class Certi-fried installer

cntrylvr79 wrote:

---

I'm going to guess it had something to do with the starter kill being hooked up wrong.

---

Yep. Instead of wiring the relay coil to ignition(+), I wired it to the (-)ignition relay wire from the ribbon cable. Whenever the alarm was armed, the GWA through the starter kill relay coil would ground the ignition relay and keep the ignition circuit active.

Yay me I was right.  Had another installer here do the same thing.  His reaction to the car still running was kinda funny.

-------------
Cause I'm So white and nerdy...
First Class Certi-fried installer

Well I had a funny one today, a "competitor" of my mine did a remote start on a chev aveo. After they were done they shipped it out apparently without testing. Every time when remote started the wipers would turn. Second ign. was hooked into wipers. I thought it was hilariuos, thier customer was not laughing................

-------------