97 Cobra alarm issues or someone trying to steal my car?

[JustinG60]

Alright, so the first night i had my car i drove it for 400 miles, parked it for the night and the alarm goes off around midnight or 1am.

never had this so i grab a side arm and go to find out why someone is on my property messing with my car. no one around but after inspecting the car there looks like there was a flat head screw driver mark on the seal by the window at the B pillar.

nothing for a few weeks...

then it happened again 2 days in a row around the same time, no new marks noticed on the car.

at this point i think, maybe that mark i found was old and there's something wrong with the alarm. i stopped arming the alarm and only lock the doors with the remote. a few days later it did it again... so then i started locking the doors by hand and not the key fob. no issues for a while but 2 nights ago the alarm went off again?!?!

so i thought maybe the battery was dying causing the alarm to go off but i thought about it, the car NEVER even hesitated to start so i doubt there's a battery issue. i apologize if this is common and i'm asking but my electrical experience is all VW related... finally grew up and got into cars that can go much faster for the same money dumped into it haha

thoughts?

 

[Dave Llewellyn]

I have a 98 with 29k miles. The car sat for four years undriven... car battery [obviously] died and so did both remotes for the alarm system causing them to lose their program as well. Long story short... after we got the remotes reprogrammed so we could disable the alarm and actually start the car, every time I've gone to arm the alarm it never fails that in less than three minutes it goes off. Not worth replacing through Ford for the cost... The alarm [I believe] can be bypassed and you can have a decent aftermarket one installed.

 

[JustinG60]

so you're thinking the alarm is faulty and it's just crap luck for me that it keeps going off around the same time at night?

i don't think that's out of the question, i guess the weird thing is the time and unfortunately a house up from me got some ...less than desirable renters that had multiple search and seizure warrants done there.

so i was just looking to see if these cars had alarm issues. now that i's getting nice i am going to try to clean up my 2 car garage to get the Cobra in there with my Corrado so hopefully it will rule the theft option out haha

 

[mwolson]

I have had issues with corrosion on the door open switches on other cars (Hondas) that have caused this issue. The alarm would sound in the middle of the night for no reason. When I looked at the door switches, they were obviously rusty. When I replaced them, the problem went away.

 

[JustinG60]

thanks! it's something else to look at. there seems to be no rhyme or reason as to when it goes off...

not too keen on an aftermarket unit. being very knowledgeable and experienced with VW Corrados i have had to pull out many alarms, they can cause electrical nightmares