Okay, you all have been so helpful that I’m coming to you again.
So I finally purchased a 2007 Buick Terraza van which came with factory alarm.
I have had it for 8 months and have replaced the battery in the key fob 3 times already!
The crazy alarm works better from a distance than it does next to the car. The closer I get,
the more effect I have to make to get it to activate. When I change the battery, it works close to the car for about a week or two,
then the response time starts fading again. However, the response time from a distance remains the same.
Any ideas or helpful suggestions?
“The closer I get,
the more effect I have to make to get it to activate.”
Have you read the owner’s manual for your van? All the GM products I know of…you have to lock the vehicle in order to “activate” the alarm. Usually the first push of the lock button locks the doors and the second push will sound the horn which activates the alarm.
Are you saying you are having trouble with the doors locking and unlocking with the remote ? Or are you trying to activate the panic alarm ? One push should lock the doors. One push on the fob unlock button will unlock the drivers door, second push will unlock the other doors. Most of the time the manual will tell you how to have chirping sounds or lights flash for each operation.
I’m confused too. What exactly do you mean by “activating” the alarm?
Regardless, my first guess is that you keep the fob jammed in a tight pocket, causing the buttons to keep getting pressed and the battery to get run down. If so, you could try to avoid doing that to see what happens. Do you have a second fob that you can try instead to rule out any problems with the fob itself?
If I understand correctly, whatever you are trying to do (which isn’t clear), it works better w/the fob further away from the car than when you are standing next to the car. That’s possible as the radiation pattern is different on both the fob and the car’s receiver antenna, near vs far. You’d think the engineers who designed it would have already worked this out, but apparently not.
So what to do? … hmmm … Ok, try changing the orientation of the fob when you are near the car. If you usually hold it in a horizontal orientation, hold it vertical. Or hold it pointing toward the car, or away. And try the various intermediate orientations. One or two will likely work better than any of the others. When you are near the car the magnetic field interaction between the fob and the car’s receiver will probably be the signal pathway, so experiment a bit w/the fob orientation to better align the transmitter magnetic field to the receiver’s magnetic coils. Hopefully once you get the correct orientation you won’t have to change the batteries as often.
Fobs and alarm systems … if you search on those terms here on the Car Talk website, you’ll see a lot of hits. They seem to cause owners a lot of grief.
GeorgeSanJose wrote:
Fobs and alarm systems … if you search on those terms here on the Car Talk website, you’ll see a lot of hits. They seem to cause owners a lot of grief.
It’s the aftermarket security systems and remote starters that tend to have issues. Factory ones seem much better.
Target practice??