A strange thing happened today. Opened the car with the keyfob as usual and off we set for lunch. Got to our chosen eating place, left the car and pushed keyfob to lock. Nothing happened. Thought the batteries may be dead so locked the car using the key and off we went to eat. Removed batteries from the keyfob, cleaned and replaced them. Sure enough the red LED was lighting up when pressed, so I assumed batteries were fine. Back to the car and pushed to unlock, nothing happened. So we got in using the key and I tried to use the keyfob to de-immobilise the car and drive off. No luck! So I used the keypad and off we went. Got back to work and tried to lock the car with the keyfob, it worked first time! Gave it a few tries and all was well. What gives? Do alarm systems get "confused" like this sometimes? Could our lunchtime parking place have been giving out signals that were blocking the alarm's one?

 

not an expert or anything, but key fobs use radio signals, and therefore can get inteference from anything else with a similar frequency. Hence Cat 1 keypad is always a good option.

 

I'm no expert either, but I find that when radar tests are being run on my work site then my alarm keyfob will not work at all...

 

Definitely some sort of radio interference there. Was there a police transmitter in the area?

 

or a mobile phone mast ? these def screw up key fob signals.
read another thread in here somewhere

 

Well, returned to the place in question today and the same thing happened again. Parked further away in case the burger joint itself was giving off weird signals but it didn't help So it's definately a local thing.

But then about 20 metres down the road at the petrol station all was well again. Several buildings nearby with antennas, but no obviously huge ones. And much embarassment as I set off the alarm twice whilst fumbling in the glovebox with my keypad...

 

If you are under warranty you can get a new receiver for your alarm from the dealer. I had the same problem when Derby emergency services changed their operating frequency (apparantly).

Could lock the car at my own house

Dealer had car for an afternoon, and it was all sorted

 

...I had the exact same experience happen to me last night. I pulled up in a car park, also funnily enough close to a McDonalds and exactly as you describe, no signal from the keyfob.

Key still operated the central locking but no matter how many times I tried I was unable to disable the immobiliser.

I've only had the car 3 months and stupidly didn't make a point of finding out the PIN code for the little keypad in the glovebox.

After nearly 2 Hours and several phone calls later I find no record of any PIN among the documentation at home and decide the best course of action is now to get it towed home.

Been to the Dealer this morning who inform me they will find out the PIN from Subaru UK. My concern is that the original owner has probably changed it from the one the Dealer gives me and I will obviously not be able to manually overide the system.

Can the Dealer reset the whole system so I put in an Overide code of my own?

...to be continued.