Mysterious Jetta alarm
February 14, 2008 3:26 PM   Subscribe

My '01 Jetta's alarm keeps going off at my new house, but nowhere else.

I've had this '01 Jetta VR6 for about a year and a half, and it's had a litany of problems. The latest: since I moved into a new house two weeks ago, the built-in, factory-installed alarm goes off incessantly. It started, literally, four hours after I parked in front of the house for the first time. I'm sure my new neighbors love me already.

It goes off when I park the car on the street. It goes off when I park the car in the garage. I unlock the car with the key fob and relock it; then it goes off again a few hours later. The neighborhood is new, quiet, and uneventful; the garage is totally empty.

It never went off at the old house (where it had stray cats walking all over it) and it never goes off at work (even though I park right next to a busy train track). This makes me think it's not a sensitivity issue.

Right now, I'm parking the car in the garage, unlocked. This isn't sustainable -- the Natural Order of Things is for me to park in the street and my husband to park in the garage, and he's getting antsy. I'm unwilling to leave the car unlocked on the street.

I'm reluctant to take the car in to the shop because the people at the shop never, ever believe me when I complain about stuff that I can't reliably reproduce. The guy raises his eyebrow at me and makes me feel like an idiot, and they never fix the problem. However, it's the place I got my car from, and I don't think I can apply their warranty anywhere else. (It's a national used car chain.)

I don't need an alarm system. I wouldn't mind turning it off altogether, but according to the little I can find on Google, it's not possible. It doesn't even seem to be possible to lock a Jetta at all without enabling the alarm. (Please correct me if I'm wrong!)

Any ideas?

If it's a sensitivity issue, is there anything I can do to adjust it? Or if there's nothing I can do, do you have any suggestions for getting the guys at the shop to believe the crazy lady who's always complaining about things they can never find?
posted by liet to Travel & Transportation (13 answers total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
So, you park the car in the street and the alarm goes off. You park the car in the garage and the alarm doesn't go off.

I'm thinking ... squirrels. Or raccoons. Seriously. They are sometimes attracted to the smell/taste of certain rubber compounds.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 3:42 PM on February 14, 2008


So, you park the car in the street and the alarm goes off. You park the car in the garage and the alarm doesn't go off.

No, liet says that it does go off in the garage.

Just a shot in the dark idea: do you live near any radio transmission towers? There's an area of San Diego where there's a residential neighborhood on a hillside, and on top of the hill are a bunch of radio towers. Car alarms in the area act like they're possessed, despite the transmission companies statements that the towers could not possibly be causing the interference. Anyway, alarms go off all the time, and it's the one area of town where I can't even get my alarm to arm in the first place.
posted by LionIndex at 3:51 PM on February 14, 2008


Similar situation in New York, thanks to the Empire State Building.
posted by LionIndex at 3:56 PM on February 14, 2008


Response by poster: Well, I don't hear any of the neighbors' alarms going off, but I admit I haven't gone around to confirm that they lock their cars. It's a nice neighborhood and people have nice new cars, so I assume at least some of them have alarms.

I should go talk to them. I need to apologize for waking them up that first night, if nothing else!
posted by liet at 3:58 PM on February 14, 2008


We used to have a VW GTI of approximately the same vintage, and it had the same problem. It took several trips to the shop to finally get it fixed. At first they thought it was the sensor in one of the doors, so they replaced all those. It didn't change anything. Then they thought it was some computer module thingy, but that didn't fix it either. In the end, it turned out that they needed to replace the radio. I thought that was the stupidest thing I'd ever heard, and that they must be scamming us. But replacing the radio actually did fix it.
posted by spilon at 6:31 PM on February 14, 2008


My wife had the same exact problem as spllon. The alarm went off at random times. We took it too the dealer and they said the radio needed to be re-seated. They pulled the radio out, put it back in and the problem went away.
posted by mjger at 7:20 PM on February 14, 2008


Mk IV Jettas/Golfs are some of the buggiest vehicles made ('01 GTI owner) Traditionally, the fix for the schizophrenic alarm and door locks has been to replace the driver-side door lock module. Bad soldering job on the circuit board. Connections crack over time causing intermittent breaks in the system resulting in spastic alarms and spontaneous door lockings.

That said, I can fully believe Spilon's tale of replacing the radio, too, since it's also tied-in to the security system.

As for why it seems to only occur at home...beats me. It's a VW. 'Nuff said.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:22 PM on February 14, 2008


I have a 99 Gulf and the locks are driving me crazy. I want rid of this stupid car. I'll never buy another Volkswagon.

Sorry that's chatfilter but these things are automatic lemons. I have to keep an extra key in the car to make sure I'm able to disable the stupid alarm. I live in Maine, I have no need for an alarm.

Also it sucks in the snow worse than my old Miata.
posted by sully75 at 7:44 PM on February 14, 2008


Are you sure that the alarm isn't going off randomly elsewhere and you're just not around to notice?

If it is indeed going off in your garage, driveway, and street, but no where else that points to some other cause rather than a faulty circuit.

A few questions to think about: Does it happen at particular times? Day or night? Does it happen a few hours or a few minutes after you park it for the day?

If it's happening only at night then maybe the car is warming up during the day in the sunlight, but cooling down at night and this is causing some solder joint somewhere to expand and contract thus bridging and then breaking a connection.

Otherwise it maybe some sort of outside interference. Perhaps something is triggering the car's panic alarm?
posted by wfrgms at 8:59 PM on February 14, 2008


Take the car to a VW garage, or one that appreciates new business. Spinning wheels are never a good addition to a car, but there are people who will put them on your car, for a price. This problem must have a diagnosis, and they should take you seriously.

Looking here and here and here, it seems you are not alone in this, electrical faults even causing, quote, "My girlfriend bought the same car as you and her airbag exploded for no reason!!"

Maybe it could be the difference in heat, causing expansion/contraction of a sensor?
posted by snailer at 1:25 AM on February 15, 2008


Sully75...Is the thing locking itself at random times? Sounds like you have the classic door lock module problem. You need to replace the module in the driver's side door. Some people (with far better skills than I) have actually gone in and re-soldered the cracked connections on the circuit board.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:20 AM on February 15, 2008


My sister has a 2001 Jetta that had bizarro syptoms (check engine light when nothing is wrong, dashboard instruments acting downright possessed) for quite some time. The eventual diagnosis was that she had an after-market stereo that wasn't VW-compatible. Replacing it with (a more expensive) compatible one fixed everything. Other people are mentioning the radio being an issue, too. It sounds unlikely, but I'd start there.
posted by katieinshoes at 8:18 AM on February 15, 2008


Good luck with this! I have a 2000 Jetta with a host of problems, and I am bookmarking this page just in case!
posted by radioamy at 10:14 AM on February 15, 2008


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