Is this an alarm issue?

[Jamo]

I'm not aware that my 02 XLT has a factory alarm on it, and the used car place I bought it from doesn't know either, but this happened the other night:

I unlocked all of the doors and opened the hatch. My son and I cleaned up the cargo area for about 10 minutes, then we closed the hatch. I walked to the driver's door and opened it (since everything was still unlocked). The horn started honking and the lights flashed as if I had pressed the "panic" button. I closed the door, hit the panic button to disable it, then opened the door again. It went off AGAIN. Hit the panic button again and it was silenced again and did not go off the 3rd time I opened the door (I may have hit the "unlock" button after the panic button on the 2nd go-around).

Does this sound "normal"?

 

[Cdaddy78]

Hmmmm.... Not to sound like a smart ass, but if you're hitting the panic button to disable, that IS the factory alarm...

 

[Cdaddy78]

BTW, I don't really know a whole lot about how the factory alarm works since I had an aftermaket installed and mostly dealt with it, but I believe that sounds normal. I had a door latch that thought it was open occasionally since the latch design sucks and the door switch is part of the latch (had to do the ole WD40 spray to fix) and sometimes I would come out and open the driver door and the factory alarm would go off. (sounds similar to you having the rear hatch open for some time) Whether or not this helps you...who knows. Good luck.

 

[Jamo]

According to the owner's manual, the factory "perimeter alarm" arms once the lock button is pressed. Since I had the doors *un*locked, I would have thought it would have been disabled. It hasn't done it since. I just assumed it "auto-armed" becaise the hatch had been left open for ~10 minutes. I'll watch and see if it does anything crazy.


Thanks,

J

 

[Cdaddy78]

I just assumed it "auto-armed" becaise the hatch had been left open for ~10 minutes. I'll watch and see if it does anything crazy.

J

That is what I was referring to, arming because of X amount of time passing.

 

[Jamo]

My son and I were in the Explorer yesterday, and he was fooling around with the lock/unlock buttons on the front passenger's side door. I had the key set to "ON" (engine not running, just radio running on battery power). Being 3 years old, there's no telling what he did, but some combination of button presses caused the freakin' "alarm" to go off. AGAIN.

Thankfully I just had to hit the "PANIC" button on the remote to turn it off.

Very wEIrD.... It's like he tripped the "PANIC" feature using the door lock buttons. Normally I would think that impossible, but seeing as how you can activate/deactivate certain features by using the lock/unlock buttons, AND those buttons are part of the security of the truck (because they lock the doors), maybe there is some "secret" security/alarm activation that can occur that way. Something that isn't in the manual?

Guess I'll just keep one finger on the "PANIC" button, ready to deactivate the "alarm" at a moment's notice.