Is the vehicle's battery dead? If it is it won't set the alarm off.

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I have a dilemma... my 2000 Toyota Camry's engine died about 2 months ago. However, the actual vehicle is still sitting in my driveway and I need to get something out of there.

The black lock/unlock remote doesn't work anymore. The remote still worked about 3 weeks ago...so I'm surprised it stopped now. I've also replaced the CR2032 battery to no avail.

If I use my physical key to open the doors, will that set off the car alarm? The last thing I want to do is have the alarm blaring endlessly with no way to stop it. :help:

I had the same problem when my car's battery was getting old and it wouldn't start, when I used the actual key it would go off if there was still life in the battery or after it was re-charged. Your battery is probably so drained that the automatic locking/unlocking activated by the remote is no longer working, it is probably not down to the remote. To get the car to stop going off, I just used a random combination of buttons on the remote. When the car went off and wouldn't stop by simply pressing the panic button, Lock+Panic+Lock would make it stop panicking. If you use the key to open the car up and it panics, try that combination or any random combination of buttons on the remote (Hell, there's only three buttons, can't be too hard lol). Hope this helps.

Edit: How old is your battery? A car sitting up for awhile without the alternator running, the battery will drain, and will quicker if the battery is older.

 

The dead battery makes sense, especially since I haven't touched the car in over 2 months (aside from the aforementioned quick pop in about 3 weeks ago).

Now, what if the car alarm does go off and the random remote cominbations don't work? Would simply disconnecting the Negative from the battery fix the problem? Or is there a separate alarm mechanism that needs to be tinkered with?

 

That I am not sure about. But I would think if your battery does not have enough power to activate the central locking, I wouldnt think it would have enough power to activate the alarm either. Im no expert though, some of the guys in here should be able to contribute more than I can.

 

Yes, popping the hood and disconnecting the negative terminal on the battery will stop the alarm noise.