fotoman

Have a 94 Maxima 6 Cyl GXE and the alarm goes off unexepectedly usually doing the wee hours of the early morning after 2am while im sound asleep. All the doors, hood, etc is closed and locked. When its going off if will continually go thru a cycle of going off and on until i unlock the passenger or drivers door with a key or punch in the code hours later like 6 or 7 am when im awake and notice the alarm sounding ......

What i have been doing is just locking the doors at night and just disconnecting the battery ...... I like having an alarm but i will settle for just being able to lock the door without the alarm going off or having to disconnect the battery.

The security light in the dash used to flash but it doesnt anymore. How I lock the car up for the night is I either lock all the doors with lock.unlock switch inside car or if im outside the car i just press the 9/0 key on the keypad.

If someone knows what is causing this please let me know..... ALSO

I dont want to just leave the car unlocked so i am planning on doing 1 of the following and want your opinion on each:

1. just continue to disconnect and reconnect the battery.

2. If I leave the alarm on i dont want to drain the battery because of the horn and lights flashing continually, should I:

a. Take out the horn fuse or relay in the engine compartment and put it back in when i drive the car.

b. Take out the headlight relays in the engine compartment too and put them back in when i drive the car

c. Take out the anti theft fuse inside the car and/or the anti theft in the engine compartment and put them back in when i drive the car.

suggestions please????

DanNY

iTrader: (14)

go get a new hood pin switch. it's a pin switch with a rubber boot on it (boot might be gone). replace that or "jump" it and most likely you should be ok. the pin switch is by the strut tower on (i think) pass side.

James92SE

iTrader: (31)

My alarm goes off every time I unlock my doors. I've taken to just leaving it unlocked

fotoman

Ok thanks for the reply but cold you point out where this switch your talking about is or can you or anyone tell me if its there or not there from these photos. Or show me a photo of what your talking about.... thanks

If i need to get this switch where would i get one from?





pic at top of hood

James92SE

iTrader: (31)

Not sure what your pictures are for unless you mean for somebody to point out what Dan means. Follow along your fenders on each side of the engine and you can't miss it

*Edit - it's on the passenger side, right in front of the strut tower, beside the steering fluid reservoir. You can't miss it, and to be clear, it's not in any of the photos you posted.

fotoman

OK guys thanks for the clarifications above .. i found it .. i always have noticed that but didnt know it was a pin switch like the ones in the doors, thought it was just a post to guide the hood alignment when you close the hood.



If you noticed in this photo i have some front end damage ....



This is how it looks with the hood closed .....



I can open and unlock the hood with no problems but discovered today that the hood was not making contact at all with this pin switch so im assuming this is why the alarm goes off unexpectedly (PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE BE THE ANSWER) so i glued a piece of wood on the underside of the hood that makes contact with the switch so now the switch that i didnt knew existed is now being pressed down whenever i close the hood.

So now i will put the fuse for the horn back in and will leave the battery connected and lock all the doors and see what happens. I have been dealing with this issue since August 2006!!!!!!!

DanNY

iTrader: (14)

yup that should do it.

Hectic

iTrader: (20)

At the very least just unplug the alarm unit, that way you can at least get out of the habit of leaving your car unlocked. Doesn't your VE have very low miles? You don't want some teenage thieves destroying things.. Losers will take razor blades to the interior for laughs.

kringle03

Agreed! Your car is much to valuable to the rest of us for that kind of thing to happen!

Matt93SE

iTrader: (44)

You should have asked sooner. Before you were done with the first post, I was going to ask if you'd had a front end collision or installed a FSTB that rubbed the hood. It's pretty common for either. I had a FSTB a few years ago that rubbed the hood. Everything was fine until the car was parked outside in a heavy wind. it would cause the hood to move enough to set the alarm off. Probably the same thing happening to you- either that or you have a cat jumping on your car at night...

fotoman

There is a long story to the history of this car but the quick story is before this car was hit or the driver ran into something on the passenger side the car ran better than some new cars... The previous owner was only interested wth the insurance settlement of about $3k so he bought an 84 nissan for the gas mileage and was going to sell this car to the parts yard for $100 ... so I got it .. for months I drove the car wit the hood held down with a lock and chain because I was going to get the hood and left front of the car replaced, the previous owner held the hood down with a piece of string and only drove about 10 to 20 milesper hour!!!!!! So I basically drove the car around for 2 years with the hood technically not closed. The previous owner gave me the impression that the hood wouldnt close properly because it was dented over the passenger headlight (which I replaced) so I never really tried to close until I went to get inspected and a guy there i knew bent the damaged part up so it wouldnt touch the headlight and viola!!! the hood opens and closes ...no problem ..... KEEPING IN MIND ... That I had been disconnecting the battery at night because otherwise the alarm would sound unexpectedly usually while i was sound asleep ... when i drove the car i would just lock it and somethings the alarm would go off but I only had a problem one time when i tried to start the car when the anti-theft was engaged .....

ANYWAY ..... When I starting closing the hood about a few weeks ago i thought my alarm problem was solved ... the car would sit locked all day and most the night but sometimes it would still go off ....I guess about 6 months or more I noticed that the security light indicator on the dash didnt blink anymore ( a fuse? a bad bulb? the alarm not engaging???) but the alarm would still go off unexpectedly even though the security light didnt blink ... so i would the lock the car and went back to disconnecting the battery at night again .........

YESTERDAY .... I discovered that the car had a pin switch which let the alarm know the hood was closed .... The hood will close but it is bend from the collision so it doesnt make any contact with the switch when the hood is closed so I glued a piece of wood so it would press the switch in when closed .......

CLOSING ..... It is possible that a cat or squirrel would jump from the roof onto the hood at night ..... im sure the wind would blow it too but i have shook and shaked and almost turned that car upside down and the alarm would not go off but never knew there was a pin switch even though i would see it when i put in power steering fluid but didnt know it was a switch. The cats can jump away now since I glued the wood under the hood to press the switch down!!!!

SO ....I recharged my battery and tonight will be my first night to see that the alarm doesnt go on and off.....

fotoman

OK guys its been 10 days and counting since I did the fix above to make sure the pin switch under the hood was pressed down and NO FALSE ALARMS or unexpected alarm drills during the wee hours of the night with the battery connected and the doors locked .......


HOWEVER ..... as I mentioned earlier, the security light in the dash used to blink (and click?) but it doesnt anymore, so is this something I should be concerned about? Just trying to make sure the anti-theft system is really armed without having to set it off to test it....