Factory Alarm Issues with a 2005 STI
 

I have no idea what's wrong with my car alarm. I've noticed a progression of signs that something was wrong. First, my car alarm would chirp when I arm the car every now and then as if it did it when it wanted to. Next, I started to notice that chirp started to sound like R2D2 was losing power; I checked my battery, and its fine. Now, I noticed that my lights don't flash when I arm/disarm the locks. What's more weird is that I can open my trunk lid even with the alarm armed. Does anyone have any idea what's wrong?

I took the car in for service a couple of weeks back, and had them do an electrical evaluation when I couldn't figure out why my fog lights I installed weren't working. After $228 later, they tell me that STIs don't have foglight relays. So do you think I would get charged, since I'm no longer under warranty, if I asked them to do a follow up on the electrical evaluation they did for me?

sounds like a bad alarm siren.

[QUOTE=4EVO2NV;1986281]sounds like a bad alarm siren.[/QUOTE]

Bad siren or not, I'll find out when I take it to Carlsen Subaru tomorrow. I'll update the thread in case anyone else ends up having issues like me.

The lights not flashing and being able to open the trunk with no alarm means you somehow put it in valet mode. This can be confirmed if the security light on the dash is flashing constantly at a rate of twice a second. With the drivers door open, hold down the unlock button on the remote for a few seconds. That will put it back in normal mode.
As for the weak chirp it is very common for the piezo chirp beepers to fail. The beeper is located up front by the radiator. If you're out of warranty you can just buy a new one and replace it yourself.

[QUOTE=Mulder;1986350]The lights not flashing and being able to open the trunk with no alarm means you somehow put it in valet mode. This can be confirmed if the security light on the dash is flashing constantly at a rate of twice a second. With the drivers door open, hold down the unlock button on the remote for a few seconds. That will put it back in normal mode.
As for the weak chirp it is very common for the piezo chirp beepers to fail. The beeper is located up front by the radiator. If you're out of warranty you can just buy a new one and replace it yourself.[/QUOTE]

Thank you so much! Your post has just saved me $100+. Just in the nick of time since my appointment was tomorrow at 7:30am. The security light blinking twice the normal rate was the sure shot sign that I needed to confirm that it was in Valet Mode. After taking it out of valet mode, I locked the car and tried to open my trunk lid. Well, the deafening honking is functioning again.

As for the piezo chirp? Where can I get one of those, how much do they cost, and how involved is the DIY fix?

Here is a thread on NASIOC discussing this problem. You can see that it's been a known issue for a while affecting many cars. See the pic in post #44 for the location of the beeper.
[url]http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=608657[/url]

[QUOTE=Mulder;1986607]Here is a thread on NASIOC discussing this problem. You can see that it's been a known issue for a while affecting many cars. See the pic in post #44 for the location of the beeper.
[url]http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=608657[/url][/QUOTE]

Thanks for all your help.

[QUOTE=Mulder;1986350]The lights not flashing and being able to open the trunk with no alarm means you somehow put it in valet mode. This can be confirmed if the security light on the dash is flashing constantly at a rate of twice a second. With the drivers door open, hold down the unlock button on the remote for a few seconds. That will put it back in normal mode.
As for the weak chirp it is very common for the piezo chirp beepers to fail. The beeper is located up front by the radiator. If you're out of warranty you can just buy a new one and replace it yourself.[/QUOTE]

Just wanted to randomly bump this thread for this quote. If you read this Mulder I just wanted to thank you and the i-club search function for most likely telling me why my lights aren't flashing when I arm my alarm anymore.

~Jon

Glad to see it helped you.

A weak battery that is on its way out will make the car go into valet mode due to low voltage from the battery. I had the same problem when mine went out and the nastysock results showed the samething.