Need Aftermarket Alarm Help

[ericmpena]

A few weeks back my car was broken into without the factory alarm doing shit. The doors were definitely locked and the factory alarm was enabled...but somehow the thieves were able to open the door without triggering the factory alarm and break apart my head unit in a crappy attempt to steal it....

That brings me to now. I had a Clifford 3305X alarm system installed as soon as I got my car back from getting repaired. So far I'm not very satisfied so I'm hoping to find out if there are options that work better with a Limited BRZ or not.

These are my issues:

1. The range sucks unless you're in an open field. Put 1 wall between me and my car and the remote will only communicate with the car about 25% of the time, if that.

2. The impact sensors suck. I seriously have to hit my car hard enough to make a deep dent in order to set the sensor off. I've had alarms in the past that were way more sensitive than my current Clifford alarm, yet the installers insist that the sensors are set to max sensitive.

3. The sensor really only responds on one side of the car, which is by the steering wheel/driver side fender. The rear of the car, as well as the passenger side, are hardly responsive to any impacts since the impact sensor is located by the driver front panel.

4. The trunk has no sensor. I can have my alarm fully armed, open my trunk...and nothing. With the impact sensors being so crappy you'd only hope that the trunk would at least trigger the alarm if it's opened while the alarm is armed. Nope. Anyone can forcefully pry open my trunk with only slight chances of triggering my impact sensor, and once the trunk is open there's still no trigger to set off the alarm.

5. Proximity key issues. I cannot approach my car with my proximity key or else my alarm will go off. I always have to disarm the alarm before I even get close to my car. This is a pain because sometimes I'll have the keys in my pocket but just walk by my car while taking my dog out and set off my stupid alarm. Is this something that happens with Proximity Keys and Alarms? Do they not work well together?

6. Remote Start. This is just something extra, but I figured if I was going to get an alarm I wanted to try Remote Start as well. Apparently there's a problem doing that with a car that has a Smart Key, so I guess that isn't possible...at least that's what they told me. I didn't do any research on it, but if remote start is something that's possible with a Smart Key I'd like to get some info on that.

Okay, so there are my issues with the alarm that I recently got installed. Are there any alarms out there that you all would recommend that work well with a BRZ + Smart Key? Thanks for the feedback fellas!!

[ProjectD]

sorry to hear this....gl

[ericmpena]

Originally Posted by ProjectD

sorry to hear this....gl

Lol. Thanks. It's not a big deal I guess...I'm just being picky about how my alarm system should work. If I can't find anything that works better then I'll survive with what I have for now.

[rmjjensen]

The installer did a horrible job. You can stop reading from 1-3 and know they did a bang-up job.

1) The antenna is most likely in a bad place for you but a very convenient place for the installer. If I were to venture a guess it's on the driver's side corner of the windshield (top or bottom) because it's easiest for the installer.

2) The "shock sensor" is not placed on the body of the car (see 3). Since it's not secure, the sensitivity is probably low to avoid false alarms.

3) The sensor most likely has been "zip tied" to some wire loom - most likely in the steering column since it's easiest for the installer.

4) You have a trunk light right? It turns on when the trunk opens? Yeah, the installer was lazy and decided not to hook it up - maybe running a wire all the way into the trunk would take too long.

5) There must be a bypass module that handles the Smart Key system. I'm sure whatever it is wasn't used properly or the door trigger wire has been hooked up to the dome light. This was a very hacky early installer trick - dome light turns on when the door opens so I can use that ...nope, not with the smart key - dome light turns on when you get close to the car - boom, alarm triggers since it thinks the door opened but it was just the stupid light. From an installer point of view - it's SUPER easy to find the dome light wire!!

6) You can remote start anything - they didn't use the right bypass module or have no clue how to program / hook it up.

I've been installing stuff since '02 ...I know the tricks they used - unfortunately they don't provide good customer satisfaction (obviously).

[continuecrushing]

wow...really really bad job. What place installed this "alarm"

Gonna be a tough one to clean up. The place that installed it the first time is probably gonna bitch/do more shitty work "fixing it" and another alarm install place is either gonna charge a ton to fix it, or they won't work on it at all since the first place probably hacked everything up.

Keep us updated

[ericmpena]

Thanks for the information! The place that did my install was Pro Car Audio in Austin, TX. They have the highest ratings and weren't too far so that's why I chose them. I should've known the alarm system install was terrible based on my OEM Audio install. My subwoofer wasn't even hooked up properly...even after taking the car back 3 times without them fixing the issue.

I ended up removing my head unit myself and fixing the mess they made. My stereo is working finally, but now I'm putting my attention to my crappy alarm install.

Maybe I'll swing it by somewhere else and see how much it'll be to fix this mess. I think the alarm system is good quality, I just think it wasn't installed to provide the best experience.

Edit: Also want to add that when I took my car back to ask them about the alarm sensitivity the manager used his fist on my door to show me the alarm worked fine, and in doing so put a dent in my door. He tried playing it cool by saying, "you can barely see it." I said I would return with a receipt for the cost of the dent removal. $75 later I went back to the shop and the manager said, "I can only give you $50. Any more than that and it's gonna take a few weeks." I was furious with all the trouble so far and just took the $50 so I can be done with them. I don't know how they're rated 4.9 stars.

[continuecrushing]

wtf? Thats some wack stuff over there...

and as far as alarms go, the install plays the biggest part in "quality"

Make sure you write a review, it will either help motivate them to do the right thing, or at least help steer others away from there.

[ericmpena]

Originally Posted by Shutter

wtf? Thats some wack stuff over there...

and as far as alarms go, the install plays the biggest part in "quality"

Make sure you write a review, it will either help motivate them to do the right thing, or at least help steer others away from there.

Lol, and the whole time he was trying to short me the $25 the other employees were just standing around us like if it was some fight going down. So unprofessional. I wish I had told him," you didn't cut me any deals for the install, why should I cut you a break?"

Oh well, the sooner I move on the better. At this point I don't even care about spending more money to have it fixed, I just wasn't something I'm happy with.

Gonna shop around and I'll keep y'all updated. Thanks again!

[rmjjensen]

When I was actually doing this stuff for a living you had to be a reputable Clifford dealer to sell their products. Not any shop can sell/install the Clifford brand.

Let clifford know of your troubles. I doubt you'll get very far but Clifford would not want to hear that their products are getting a bad name due to installer error.

Good luck.