My daughter has a 2000 Toyota Camry that had an aftermarket car alarm installed before we bought the car. It has red button on the dash that either has to stay pushed in, on not pushed in. She lost her remote control a long time ago, and while she was at college, she took the car to a shop and paid them to disconnect the alarm. Sure enough - 2 years later, she was at a park somewhere, and the alarm started going off when she tried to get in her car. She couldn’t figure out how to get it to turn off (since she no longer had the remote entry fob). It also disables her ability to start her car for at least 20 minutes. A GREAT theft deterrent, but certainly a pain.
So, my question is, can anyone tell us if there is a sequence she needs to go through to turn that alarm off when it does happen to go off? Opening the trunk with the key? Or whatever combination of moves she needs to make. She may get a bottle cap and tape it over that red button to keep it from getting pushed in again - but we still need to find out how she can turn it off if it does go off.
There are many different aftermarket alarms. They don't all use the same systems. I would advice anyone who has a car and wants to add an aftermarket alarm to think twice. They have a lot of problems.
Chances are the bad guys know a lot more about it than you do.All I know is it has a red button on the dashboard, and if it gets pushed in (I believe) it makes the alarm system active. Usually it’s not pushed in - but if it accidentally gets pushed, then if she unlocks the car the wrong way, the alarm goes off, and the engine won’t start for a minimum of 20 minutes (not to mention that it keeps honking). At one point in time we actually found instructions for a sequence of things to do that would stop the alarm. (Like getting in the car, locking the door from the inside, then unlocking and getting out…think also there was a version with the trunk), we would make sure that she had the info in wallet for future reference.
Amen on the aftermarket junk. I bought my 2002 Sienna new, and it had an alarm. Turns out it was a TRW installed at sale time, to comply with Texas law. When the car gets hot, the alarm fires off all by itself, just sitting there. And, sometimes it will glitch and disable the start function, I need to cycle it with the remote to get the engine started. The dealer wants like $450 to install a genuine Toyota alarm. That is the “wart on Elizabeth Taylor’s nose” for my otherwise great car.
Before anyone can begin to tell you how to manually disable the alarm we need to know make, model etc. And once you have that you can go to the companies website and download the manual. The “brain box” is usually located behind the lower dash panel on the drivers side. At least the one in my 1999 Camry is.