Strange Alarm happenings

[majic79]

so I've been running my 90 for a little over a week now, and aside from the lazy starting, it's been pretty good. This morning, parked up at work (-3 degrees!) and went in for the day. This evening, I went out to the truck and pressed the blipper - nothing happened (LED lit up on blipper, nothing on the truck). Pressed it a couple more times for good measure, still nothing. Thought, hmmm, there's a maplins around the corner, I wonder if the battery's a little dodgy - so I nipped round, split the fob, put a new battery in and returned to the truck. Still nothing.Knowing it would set off the alarm, I opened the door on the key and put the key in the ignition - no problem at all starting it up while the alarm was going off.Dug the manual out (while it was warming up) and read the section about the fob - press both buttons for two seconds to re-syncronise. Ok, so i tried that, nothing happened. Switched off, got out, locked the doors and tried it outside, still nothing. Tried every combination I could come up with, no matter what I pressed, the blipper would light up, the truck would do nothing. I got back in (alarm....) let it settle down and read the manual a bit more, searched the net, no obvious solution. Put key in ignition (alarm...) started it up and waited for it to settle.... then drove it home.Now I was a bit concerned, but when I got out (after a 20 minute drive) and pressed the button, it locked! I pressed the unlock - it worked...So, WTF is going on?! 1) Why could I not re-sync? 2) Why did it let me start the car when it's obviously not recieved a disarm command? 3) Why did it start working all of a sudden?I might just rip out the whole system and replace it with a Toad unit I had in my Supra....

 

[Gary Stockton]

Batteries flat?

Is there a backup battery on the alarm module that could be flat? Lazy starting and low temperatures and hinky alarm are possibly all linked - dead cell in a battery??

 

[majic79]

by lazy start - I mean it takes a few cranks, I don't think I've ever had a car crank as quick as this one does. Batteries both look good (twin battery setup), one looks like new, the other's about 4 years old, but I will get the multimeter out and doublecheck.I'm wondering if a bit of moisture's got into the alarm module, didn't think about potential batteries (although I'd have thought that it'd rely on the main battery with a small cap for battery disconnect alarm trigger). Found a manual for it, going to reset it and see how it behaves - now I just need to figure out how to get the centre console cover off

 

[Chris Green90]

I had this problem on my 90. It annoyed me so much after a while that I just got rid of the Toyota alarm, Central Locking Jobbie and replaced it with a cheepo Central locking unit. Personally I don't really need the alarm as my baby is garaged with a galv roller shutter door and top notch alarm system overnight and pretty much where ever I leave it during the day it is within eyeshot.

From what I read when I was trying to solve the problem with mine it is quite a common fault with the ecu of the alarm system.