Subaru alarm being set off by Ford Windstar

I sure wouldn't "deal with it." If it's under warranty and even THEY say = that the alarm was set off by other soobies, then they should fix it. = I'd put up a fuss.

June

My car is a 98 Impreza 2.5RS with a stock remote / central locking system.

The dealer is telling me that's the way things are and I'll have to deal. They also told me that when my car was in the shop the remotes on other sooby's would set off the alarm on my car.

Any suggestions as to what I can do about this? The car's on an extended warranty so brining it back to the dealr isn't going to be a problem.

Thanks for any help you can offer

I wouldn't put up with it. It sounds as if they don't want to please the customer. It shouldn't be a big deal to recode the car to a different frequency. I would question them to if they even know what the cause of the problem is. Its something that shouldn't happen no matter what. I would look into getting another dealer involved as well as the Subaru representative. Its possible that the dealer may not have his hands tied with what they can do locally but the Subaru representative (who covers many dealers in a particular area) has much more power and can authorize the free replacement of the factory alarm system.

If your on friendly terms with your neighbor it wouldn't hurt to ask him if he'd go along with you when you talk to the Subaru rep so you can show him firsthand the problem. Doing this will help get your problem more quickly resolved.

An informed and prepared consumer is the dealers worst enemy.

I would aim a rocket launcher at the Ford

"Its something that shouldn't happen no matter what."

It shouldn't happen all the time, but any car alarm is susceptible to interferance by other radio signals, they have to be to be FCC compliant. That's not to say that they can't encode the signal or use an alogarithmical (sp?) "code hopping" type of signalling process to help eliminate false alarms and/or accidental disarms/rearms (I don't believe subaru uses the code hopping in its OEM alarms.) Like I said, it should not happen every time your neighbour AND other suby owners use their remotes to unlock their cars. It sounds like it may just need a reprogramming or alarm module and keyfob swap. I do have a funny story to share on this matter:

I was installing a remote start/keyless entry system into a 98 Dodge Caravan and the owner asked me if it was possible to tie it in with his garage door opener so that the exhaust gases would not be trapped in his garage while it was running. I told him I could do it, but I would probably need to wire a relay to a door opener module to do it or I would have to buy an interface that is designed to integrate with garage doors, either way it would probably cost the same amount (I think I quoted $150 extra to do this). He said he wanted to think about it but to go ahead with the install w/o interfacing. No problem, I get his remote start in he is very happy. About an hour earlier he calls and says "I thought you said you weren't going to hook this up to my garage door". I told him I didn't. He then told me to come over to his house after work and explain why it was working with it afterall. I thought he was pulling my leg, but he promised a cold beer for me if I came over so I went and sure enough the "start" button would open his garage door, but his lock and unlock buttons had no affect on it. That was one of the weirdest things I ever saw.

It begs the question, so I gotta ask: does your Subaru remote unlock your neighbor's Windstar?

Buy your neighbor a new remote set. Typically you can get them at an auto store. Then they'd have to set the Windstar to "learn" mode to learn the chip code in the new remotes. That may fix the problem if there is some sort of rare code overlap and is pretty cheap.

Now if the problem is the Windstar gives off too much EMF during the lock/unlock process then that won't fix the problem. (You could isolate it, by having them park the Windstar somewhere else and use the remote to try to set off your alarm, or to sit in the Windstar and work the electric locks a few times to see if that sets off the alarm.)

Since your dealer said your car alarm went off for other remotes, I'd bet something is wrong with your alarm and they owe you a fix.

snipped-for-privacy@thisspaceforrent.com (Hannah) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com:

My '03 Impreza keyless remote is quite easy to reprogram to a new code. The instructions are in the owner's manual. That would be the first thing I tried.

You aren't alone Null. We own a 1997 Subaru Legacy SUS and our neighbor's Windstar AND their Saturn. We do not have a remote for it and were told when we bought it that it wasn't activated. Now when they set it off, the only way to shut the darn thing off is to disconnect the battery and reconnect it.

We took it to the dealership (not where we bought it) and they ordered a new remote but were unable to program it. Now we are stuck with a possessed alarm. Our solution...sell the damn thing.

Why not just pull the alarm out?

-DanD