Alarm

Alarm

March 10/2012

Code Alarm #CA6551
Fortin Bypass Kit #PATS-GM
Install by NVS.

CA6551 Installation Manual
CA6551 Owners Guide

February 14/2013

replace #CA6551 brain under warranty
#CA6551 discontinued; use #CA6552 brain

CA6552 Installation Manual
CA6552 Owners Guide

July 12/2015

Installed a 12v flashing blue LED where the factory red one was The blue LED is on when the alarm is armed.....

Final test.

February /2016

Vent mode on.

It seams I have a lemon, as nobody has ever had this/these problems before. Right.

The alarm was installed by a professional installer, and worked fine from what I could tell.

After a few months, I had to replace the battery in the 2-way remote. No big deal, it was probably just a bad battery. Well, a f ew months later, I had to replace the battery in the remote again. Now, having to change
the battery this frequently is one thing, but the batteries are $8-10 at local stores. After chatting with AudioVox customer service, they said I should get 8-10 months out of a battery, I was advised to replace the
remote under warranty.

Done.

Thinking that things were fixed, I was surprised when I had to replace the battery in the remote only a few months later.

WTF?!?

I then bought a bunch of batteries off of e-Bay, but they were super cheap crap, and barely lasted as long as the name brand batteries. After some more use, the -Bay battereis were horribly crappy. Some got 60-90
days of use, but probably half were dead in a few weeks.

WTF?!?

Back to e-Bay, where I found a 2-pack of rechargeable batteries with a wall charger for the cost of four name brand batteries.

Done.

After some time, I found that I could get aroud 45 days of use out of these batteries, so I got in the habit of changing the battery at the beginning of every month. Having two batteries, I kept one charged and ready to
go. Doing this is a small pain in the ass, but it does keep the cost of batteries to a very minimum.

Now, if this wasn't enough, there were other issues popping up.

The first issue was that when the alarm was triggered, and I tried to turn off the alarm with the remote, nothing happened. I pressed the button several times, then the other button. Nothing. After about 20 seconds, the
remote finally turns off the alarm. Rather annoying. When this happened, it was quicker to go in the car and turn off the alarm with the valet button.

The second issue was that when starting the car with the remote start, the doors would be randomly unlocked. I ended up having to "unlock" then "lock" the doors via the remote when using remote start just to ensure
that the car was locked.

These two issues really take the fun away from having a fancy car alarm and defeat the purpose of having such a device. So, I chatted with AudioVox again, and I was advised to replace the main module (main brain).

Done.

After some use, nothing changed. The alarm did, and still does have all of the above issues. Four years later, I have just learned to live with them, but they still annoy me and make me hate this alarm.

Vent mode off.

March 13/2016

For mental reasons beyond my control, the placement of the blue LED was bothering me. I'd prefer it to be centered, and want the stock alarm LED back where it was. This should be an easy change, but, when I
first installed the blue LED, I drilled out and installed LED holders in both holes, which is not the look I want anymore. After a trip to the junk yard, I can start the change.....

Picked up a used dash insert from the junk yard.

Drilled a hole in the center of the insert, and installed the LED holder. I put a dab of crazy glue on the backside to hold it in place.

I had trouble getting the LED into the insert. I tried and tried, but it would only go part way into the holder. I didn't realize how much of a "pressure fit" these holders are, so I had to unglue the LED holder from the
dash insert, put the LED into the LED holder, then put the LED holder into the dash insert. With the dash insert back in place, I did one last test by arming the alarm, and the LED didn't come one. I pulled the dash
insert back out and found that I was too ruff with the LED and it was barely working intermittently. I replaced it, re-installed the dash insert and did one last test.

The voice of my dis-pleasure when I found out that the LED didn't work.

Replacement LED installed and all back together.

Final test.

The original dash insert. I cut down the LED holder where the light sensor was.

March 17/2016

This morning I used the remote start. All was good until the car started, and I didn't get the normal confirmation beeping on the remote like normal. I could here that the car was running, and I was able to "unlock"
and "lock" the doors and got the normal confirmation beeps. The issue was that the icon on the remote was a combination of the "door lock" icon and the "remote start" icon, which meant no "count down timer"
icon as normal. Bizarre!

Two icons displayed that aren't supposed to be displayed at the same time.

August 21/2016

The flashing LED I installed back in March 2016 had stopped working. After some inspecting, I found that it worked intermittently, and wiggling the wires played a part. I ordered up a new LED and
installed it. Bets on as to how long this one will last.

June 1/2017

Used the remote start this morning. All was normal, except the car didn't start. I stopped the non-running car with the remote, then remote started it again and it worked properly. Anothe quark of this
Code Alarm lemon.

June 11/2017

The flashing LED I installed back in August 2016 was acting up. It work fine when first on, but after a few hours it would flash at least twice per second. And when it was really cold, it always did this.
I had been looking for a better quality flashing LED, but couldn't find anything that was blue. While buying some other electronics online, I stumbled across one at LighthouseLEDs. I hope this one lasts
longer than the previous ones; this will be the third one in just over a year. Thankfully the install only takes a few minutes.

Lighthouse LEDs #12V5MMFLASHINGPREWIREDBLUE.

All done.

January 25/2018

I've always wanted to have a spare 2-way remote, and when I stumbled across a used one on e-Bay, I snapped it up.

July 1/2018

I made this about 5 years ago. I had decided that if this alarm remote was going to burn through batteries, I was going to get a couple of rechargeable's to help keep the cost of batteries down. The
only issue was that the rechargeable's charged to 3.9-4.1 volts, where the single use batteries were 3.6 volts. It's purpose was to drain some voltage off the freshly recharged battery. It works. I
don't always use it, and the alarm remote hasn't blown up, so not sure if I even need to use it.