Alarm

[kp]

7:30 this morning the standard cobra alarm on my Willy 2 kicked off.

It kept on going non-stop. The indicators were not flashing. (Is this normal?)

I turned it of at the fob, the indicators flashed to show it was deactivating but alarm still kept on going!

Opened bonnet and tried to turn off alarm at the box with the key, but found it was the wrong key for the alarm.

Disconnect battery.

Oh B*****

The car has been driven very little over the last month so could it be the battery being a bit down? But why did it still go on after I deactivated it???

Battery is new so I don't think that would be an issue.

I have read in an earlier post that the bonnet alarm sensor/switch (found by the passenger headlight) can be an issue but this has been disconnected on my car and has been since I got it.

I have not re-connected the battery yet as I need to go out for a bit.

Has anyone else seen anything similar?
From having the same alarm on a clio years back, I believe that if you lock the car with the key and not the fob the immobiliser will be turned on but the alarm doesn’t get turned on. Does anyone know if this is correct?
Is there any other way to turn off the alarm and the car still runs?

Grateful for any thoughts.

[northy]

Is the alarm a cobra one ??

[kp]

Yes - it's the standard fit one.

[BRUN]

a lot of cobra alarms have battery back up built into the siren box

[northy]

ok.

there are alot of things that can go wrong with this alarm mate. Hence why most are upgraded to the latest sealed cobras.

You can remove the battery from the siren quite easily from underneath....give it a good inspection and check to see how much voltage is in the pack.

They are rechargables and unavalible new now....so if they are knacked there isnt much you can do (unless u build your own like i did)

if the car hasnt been run for ages...give it a ten min run and see how it goes on.

if the fault still happens then get back intouch mate.

[kp]

Connected up the car battery and the alarm now seems to be behaving itself. Took it for a run and still OK.

I am going to take your advice and look to get a new immobiliser in the future, in the meantime I’ll disconnect the battery if I am not using it for a bit.

Thanks for your input – it’s appreciated.

Just got the car about a month ago and currently got it off the road until I get it back to a decent state. Can’t wait till I get it sorted and back on the road!

[FATBOY]

ive had endless problems with mine due to the fact that the car is only driven at weekends at during the week its not driven at all! apparently the alarm can detect a drop in the voltage thus setting the alarm off which is meant to be a warning that the battery is very low! now all i do is switch the alarm off(via the siren) during the week now(the car is safe and all locked up in the car port with locked garage door and i have the works van parked in front of the door too) and switch the alarm back on at weekends!

[Jersey]

Hi Northy, in your post below you mention that you made up a replacement battery pack for your Alarm. I have just taken mine out (suspecting it because my alarm goes off for seeminly no reason these days) and tested it to find it's producing 6.58 volts. I'm happy to make up a replacement pack for it but can you remember if each of the cells are standard 1.2 or 1.5 volt AA's?

I'm pretty virginal when it comes to forum posting (a 'newbie'???) so please excuse any mistakes/bad practices.

Many thanks, James from Jersey

ok.

there are alot of things that can go wrong with this alarm mate. Hence why most are upgraded to the latest sealed cobras.

You can remove the battery from the siren quite easily from underneath....give it a good inspection and check to see how much voltage is in the pack.

They are rechargables and unavalible new now....so if they are knacked there isnt much you can do (unless u build your own like i did)

if the car hasnt been run for ages...give it a ten min run and see how it goes on.

if the fault still happens then get back intouch mate.

[fasterthanjesus]

is your earth connection good? (mine did something similar and it turned out my earth was poor).

i would seriously consider a toad alarm to cure all niggly problems.

[Jersey]

Just realised with 3 cells in the pack and 6.58 volts total each cell MUST be greater than 1.5 volts. Maybe they're 3.3 volt cells??

Many thanks FasterThanJesus. I will check out the earths - I actually suspect earths to be responsible for a small prob I had with the fan and radio (and maybe water and oil temp guages too) after changing the steering column recently!

Will bear the Toad alarm in mind though would rather fix the Cobra as we don't really have need for decent alarms here in Jersey where it's pretty hard to steal a car and get away with it.

James