The alarm you are talking about should be a karr alarm. I think he meant he took out the motherboard unit when he was talking about capping off. Because many dealerships install their own alarms and add the price onto the vehicle. If you look under, where the led leads to, there should be wires disconnected if thats what he meant by capping it.
here are a few pics of what i was talking about. what is this box? a wiring harness makes its way up to the steering wheel, i suspect to the ignition/key.
(click for bigger pics)
this mystery box with min/max setting. it's zip tied directly under the dash near steering coloumn.
board in case/holder. this is the little black box thingy that was screwed to the bottom of the dash below the steering wheel.
board outside of case/holder. this is the led board outside of the case. it has a momentary pushbutton on it too. the two small steel pins you see are spring loaded and make contact to the other half, in there is a SMT 1.5k resistor. this led board is made by United Electech LTD (http://www.clpcb.com/). the board is marked with 94V-A, E193317, 328DS, 1008
i didnt really get the full story on this when i picked up my car new at the dealer. they tried to sell "it" to me for $200 at the last minute before i finalized the paperwork, etc. the little led box was blinking blue when i went up to the car..... i think dealer said it was a starter immobilizer or something.... but the key if rfid so i dont really get what it is. i also think they said the button on the led box was if you want floor illumination and it would stay on if you press the button. when i said i didnt want to pay $200 for it they said they could disable it and then cap off the led box. the cover of the led box basically blocks off the led and has no provision to use the momentary push button. the under dash box looks like it was added in because some of the wires going to it are tapped near the fuse box in the car. the wires from the led box run into the wire loom that goes to the under dash box.
here are a few pics of what i was talking about. what is this box? a wiring harness makes its way up to the steering wheel, i suspect to the ignition/key.
(click for bigger pics)
this mystery box with min/max setting. it's zip tied directly under the dash near steering coloumn.
board in case/holder. this is the little black box thingy that was screwed to the bottom of the dash below the steering wheel.
board outside of case/holder. this is the led board outside of the case. it has a momentary pushbutton on it too. the two small steel pins you see are spring loaded and make contact to the other half, in there is a SMT 1.5k resistor. this led board is made by United Electech LTD (http://www.clpcb.com/). the board is marked with 94V-A, E193317, 328DS, 1008
i didnt really get the full story on this when i picked up my car new at the dealer. they tried to sell "it" to me for $200 at the last minute before i finalized the paperwork, etc. the little led box was blinking blue when i went up to the car..... i think dealer said it was a starter immobilizer or something.... but the key if rfid so i dont really get what it is. i also think they said the button on the led box was if you want floor illumination and it would stay on if you press the button. when i said i didnt want to pay $200 for it they said they could disable it and then cap off the led box. the cover of the led box basically blocks off the led and has no provision to use the momentary push button. the under dash box looks like it was added in because some of the wires going to it are tapped near the fuse box in the car. the wires from the led box run into the wire loom that goes to the under dash box.
so, what is it? what does the min/max do?
maybe it is for illumination, that def doesnt look like an alarm anymore. min/max is maybe a dim/bright setting?
maybe it is for illumination, that def doesnt look like an alarm anymore. min/max is maybe a dim/bright setting?
these are two different boxes. the one zip tied is apprx 3"l x 2"w x 1"thick and it has lots of wires going to it, the orange wires look like 14ga while the others look like 22ga or smaller, the little led box it only about 1x1x0.5 and only has three small wires going to it.
i was thinking min/max was some sort of delay or sensitivity setting.
yea same thing with my dealer. i saw it blinking blue then the dealer person puts a cap thing over it. that blinking light was never seen again. i always assumed it was an alarm system that wasnt hooked up yet but i have yet a way to prove it
Every dealer I have ever been to does this. They put on some crap-ass $19.95 alarm, and forget to mention it until later in the finance dept. If you say you don't want it they are quick to point out that it only adds $2 to the payment, and blah blah blah.
Fact is the the dealer doesn't make much of new car sales, and $200 alarms, $600 window tints, and other such way overpriced accessories is there last chance to make a buck from you. They play really stupid about it, but everyone at the dealer knows the scam. It's one of the things that I truly hate about purchasing a car at a dealer - being lied to.
So I recommend demanding that they not only disable it, but remove it from the vehicle completely, and repair any damage they have done to the factory wiring (they generally hack them into place). Put your foot down.
when i get home, im going to try just messing with the wires and seeing what happens. as for the piece in the second picture, i think it is unnecessary because they capped it after the alarm was supposedly already installed.
TACO KID can you not go back to the dealer who sold you your car and ask them what that is? so all of us would know.
by the time i get home from work their service dept is closed, but i called today. they said it was a shock sensor and ignition immobilizer. he said it costs $599 new for them to install (blah ha ha). overpriced stuff. i think it only costs them like $20 and they try to upsell it, and if they cant no big deal, they just leave it.
i just verified the led cicuit board, it looks like this:
3 wire connector, +, -, and a 3rd wire
led connects directly between + and -
momentary switch (no) connects between - and 3rd wire
the spring loaded pins connect - through 1.5k resistor to 3rd wire
with the led box assembled (hence the resistor was in play) i tried clicked the momentary switch with ignition on, nothing happened. but when i took the led board out of its case (hence no resistor in play) i got some action. with iginition on i double-clicked the switch and the horn beeped once and the led flashed once, then a few seconds later the horn beeped twice.
what it means or does i dunno just yet. but it seems that the 1.5k resistor disables any response.
I was perusing through the news today and saw this story. Which brought this topic to mind. Perhaps this is the part of the dealerships way of shutting down and tracking cars.
the dealer i bought from tells me the box is a Karr device. they told me it gets disabled when the pop on the diabling cap over the led module. they told me when its active it is integrated with the oem keyless entry system.
i believe the box zip tied under the dash is the small alarm system, monitors bump, glass breakage, and doors by way of voltage monitoring......
i also found this link (http://en.allexperts.com/q/Car-Alarm...-system-01.htm), seems to describe what i noticed while pressing the led button. but i have not yet seem the blue led blink after leaving/locking the car indicating a alarm device is active, etc.... some more sleuthing and i'll have it working.
i am thinking i was entering programming mode, one horn beep for channel-1 remote learning (or perhaps lock on oem key), then the two horn beep for channel-2 remote learning (perhaps the unlock button on the oem key).
this is what the whole thing looks like (not mine). this one has what looks like a radio wire. the one i have is oem keyless integrated. mine also has a wire loom running up under the steering wheel towards the ignition switch.:
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2009 Toyota Corolla
Linear Mode
