About eight months ago I bought a 94 Eagle Talon that had a car alarm on it. When I got the car (for way cheap) the alarm initally wasn't working, but neither was the side view mirror control. I took off the negitive cable to replace the spark plugs and wiring harness, reconnecting the battery cable set off the car alarm. Pressing the button on the key chain stopped this, and for the next three or four months the car worked okay. Winter hit and my battery started to drain, so that if I didn't drive it at least two hours a day or so I would have a dead car in the morning. Thinking it was the speakers causing a short or the battery wasn't good, I disconnected the speakers and had a shop test the battery for me. The battery is good and it still goes dead without the speakers connected. The only other thing I can think of is the car alarm (since it's the only peice of electronics drawing from the battery), and thus is I run into my problem.
The keychain I have says Prestige on it, so I assume that's the brand of alarm. My problem is everything else I can see of the alarm is bare with no model number or anything of that nature. Also, I'm having trouble finding anything spec-wise on how to get at the alarm, where it would be mounted or what I would need to do to remove it. I can follow a red wire from the horn up and across the car and then into it. I haven't tried taking off the dash assembly to see if it's there, and that looks like it's going to be a chore. Is this the direction I need to go? Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks! Mike
The alarm will be under your dash somewhere. It might be entirely obvious, or it might be hidden well. In the main ignition harness, you should be able to see where some wires were tapped to power the alarm and likely there will be a starter kill relay that could be causing the battery to drain. Actually it would not be the relay, but usually the relay harness with tthe diode that is bad and would need replacing. If you were to pull the alarm out entirely you should be able to just unplug it and tape up the wires well. Yo ualso might want to cut out the starter kill relay and reconnect your starter wire.
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J Rilla
Owner/Installer
Thanks for the info! I'll be able to get into the thing this weekend and hopefully get my car running again. The winter months is a tough time not to have a car.