Safe Speed Forums

A strange thing happened to my Citroen C5 yesterday. I was staying in a hotel and two cars got broken into during the night so in the morning a Police woman arrived to see the owners and parked her car next to mine. When I tried to start my car it turned over but would not fire. We tried for a few minutes and then gave up and called the AA. The AA man couldn't find any obvious reason why it would not run and no faults were logged in the computer. While we were talking the Police woman returned and drove off. The next time I turned the key the car started instantly and has been fine every time since. I can only assume that the Police radio jammed the immobilser. Have any of you had anything like this happen?

Similar(ish)...

One of my bikes (Pan) has an immobiliser. After I'd filled up with petrol I went to start my bike and it wouldn't even turn over.

I phoned the garage who I bought it from and they asked me where I was. They suggested I wheel my bike off and away from the forecourt of the petrol station, which I did.

My bike started fine!

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Pecunia Prius Equitas et Salus

There was a newspaper article posted on here or maybe PH a few weeks back about problems with car alarms,immobilizer and central locking systems at a car park. Problem was finally tracked down to a faulty alarm system on a car that was giving out a strong signal that was interfering with other cars.

It depends on the immobiliser. Some also crank inhibit in which case the engine would not turn over. It is possible if the RFID system uses a popular amplitude modulated rf system (cheap!) as this can easily get interferred with by high power radios. High end systems use a digital signal which is bullet proof.

Your diagnostics would probably not pick up a fault caused by this failure.

BTW Ducati used to use an AM system...its crap.

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Speed camera policy Kills

The worst car parks are at airports. Heathrow is very bad. The field strength of the radar is enough to trigger an alert in the security system on the car. This can cause it to secure the central door locking and keep the body system awake giving you a flat battery. If you notice on the long stay car park they offer free jump starting...for a reason!

There are strict guidlines regarding the use of radio frequency emissions and suseptability. Its one of the hardest homologation tests a car has to pass. Unfortunatly many aftermarket systems are brought in "illegaly" and they can seriously screw things up in the digital RF world we all live in.

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Speed camera policy Kills

I discovered that the hard way

Had the same problem with my bike at a petrol station near me. I think it was something to do with the massive multi-arieled mobile phone mast down the road. I've had to tell a few puzzled bikers why their bikes won't disarm.

Needless to say, I don't go there any more.

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Prepare to be Judged

Great...

Sowhat do you do about your radio PIN ?

Y'know the one.. that bit of paper you thought "This is important, I better put it somewhere safe"..... So safe you can never find it again !!

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The Box said "Windows XP or better" ... So I installed Ubuntu

Had a similar one in the petrol station at our local Tescos (as did the guy in the CRV behind me...)

Filled up, went to lock the car and the fob wouldn't work. I locked the car on the key (which also arms the alarm and imobiliser) and went off to pay thinking that maybe it was a duff battery. Returned to the car and it wouln't unlock on the fob, so I unlocked it on the key and THANKFULLY the fob would disarm the imobiliser so the car would start.

It turns out that there is a mobile phone mast INSIDE the garage signboard...

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who's had problems. A couple of people have told me they had, but since they are the sort that never open the bonnet until the car won't start their opinions didn't really count for much.

I understood that always *used* to be because Concorde on takeoff would trigger the vibration sensors. So every "alarmed" car in the long term spent 10 minits/day (or whatever) Flashing and Hooting! a couple of weeks of that and your battery would be well flat

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"The road to a police state is paved with public safety legislation"

You remove your radio, take it to a backstreet car radio shop (ie. not Halfords), give them your radio and 40 quid, then come back in an hour.

Back street shops are up in arms after that slur:lol:
Have heard (whether or not it's true today ) that radios in some very expensive cars used to have the code on the rear end of the radio.
Also heard that freezing worked a treat.

On the other hand few years ago was told that the last place to park a fully kitted out BMW/Merc was under a pylon - apparently scrambled the security system. [list=][/list]

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Not exactly, but some can have the code calculated from the serial number on the radio. There used to be an excel spreadsheet you could download that did it for you.

Seriously though, most shops offer this service, they may want some proof that you own the radio, so it may be best to leave it in the car and turn up with your logbook, but it's really not that difficult a job. They'll probably also unlock your mobile phone for you if you ask

It's not like it's illegal either.

Lum - should have put some more smilies in - raised this as an example - sort of thing you mention quite common - had it done on a works van recently -but the one on high end cars ( won't mention makes ) was told to me by someone was in a position to know ,albeit a few years ago - I would trust that those makers use a code based on the serial number now.

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

No i think that that's thats a myth. Alarms only sound for a minute or so then they reset. They do not use enough juce to flatten a battery.

Far more sinister is that any car that uses remote central locking is always scanning for a "wake up" signal. Anything that comes close causes the body system to come alive, check for an "open" signal, then after a second or so goes back to sleep again. At this time the current drain goes up dramatically. An airport radar comes saround every 2 seconds so keeps the car "alive". If the signal is considered to be a "threat" as if some one is trying to break in it can disabled the central door locking as well. That’s why cars with no door locks have a discrete lock somewhere as an emergency.

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Speed camera policy Kills