czechone

I drive an AU3 XR8. Yesterday i had the wonderful, not, experience of having my car broken into at my local shopping centre on the rooftop carpark in a totally open, exposed position in broad daylight. They took my subwoofer which im not too happy about.

What i'm more annoyed and worried about though is what's the point of using my alarm at all when all someone has to do is pick the lock on the driver's door and unlock the doors which disables the alarm ?!?!?!? My lock wasn't even damaged, they probably just used a screwdriver, stuck it in, turned and hey presto - instant access.

My concern now is if the car is so easy to get into by picking the lock is the ignition still going to be disabled or can they hotwire it and drive away ie. is the alarm and it's associated "protection" disabled totally when you open the doors using they traditional key method (or picking the lock) instead of using the remote entry keypad ? Or am i still offered the protection at least from the car being stolen (as obviously it can be broken into easily enough) ....

AUXR8U

Does your car even have an alarm?
If you do have a factory alarm then it should go off if the car is entered by any method even with the proper key, and can only be disabled by the remote or the override key.

czechone

Yeah it has an alarm, i've set off by accident a few times myself by pressing the wrong remote keypad buttons !

That's my point .... the alarm DOESNT go off when i use the proper key to open the doors (instead of the remote). It's as if when the doors are unlocked, by whatever means, the alarm won't activate. If you think about it though ........ if you lose or break the remote keypad then you should still be able to get into the car with the normal key without the alarm going off because you'd have NO WAY to turn the alarm off - right ???

That's why im confused as to when and how this alarm is supposed to sound ????? I don't have any override key - just one remote keypad and one "traditional key" for the ignition and driver's door ........

AUXR8U

Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but from what you're saying you don't have an alarm.

The alarm was an option from factory, which has a separate battery backup siren. If you had an alarm, there would be a key hole in the passengers side A pillar to enable and disable it.

All AU's from series II onwards have a panic button on the remote, which is good for **** all except tootin' the horn.

czechone

Geez man you are right !!!! Just and had a read of my owners manual .... the wild tooting of the horn i've heard before is just the "panic" alarm ..... oh well i know what have to invest in next for my car !!!

351cid

you can get upgrade alarms from most of the better alarm companies that will connect up to your factory system and arm /disarm when you use the factoy remote.
these are good if you dont want to have a second remote for a seperate alarm. best to pick one that has extra built in immobiliser ,( i use mongoose mostly)

another option is to get a high quality stand alone alarm and conect it to replace the factory remote.

the factory engine immobiliser is worked by a chip inbedded into the key itself.a good system but the weak piont is that if someone knows how to get past the factory immobiliser on one falcon he can do the same thing on any falcon.

an after market alarm with up to 3 immobiliser circuits will make his job of getting your car started that much harder.

one thing to rmember though is that any car security is only a deterant. if someone wants to get in bad enough they still will.
the best security is to always try to park where the car is easily seen by lots of people.

check out www.carsafe.com.au