Chris 1969

Edit to add: fixed it! See below for details.

Hello everyone, I'm a complete ScoobyNet newbie so apologies in advance if I'm getting this all wrong

I've owned a 2003 Subaru Legacy Outback (the 1998-2003 model) since August, without any real problems. However at about 9pm last (when the car was parked on my drive with no-one around) night the siren for the alarm started sounding. It would sound for say 30 seconds, go quiet for 10 seconds then sound again. I could see no reason for it to sound. The siren kept sounding like when I unlocked the car with the remote key, and even after I started the engine (which I guess means the immobiliser had un-immobilised everything properly). The only way I could find to shut up the siren (and stop waking the neighbourhood's children) was to disconnect the car's starter battery.

As far as I can see all the doors are closing properly (the display on the dash says they have too), and I've charged the battery and it's giving the normal voltage so that all looks OK. Since the immobiliser bit of the alarm system is working I'm stumped as to what's making the siren sound

All the signs are that it's got the original factory Sigma M30 alarm without any modifications; it has two one-button Subaru keys which both work, and the keypad in the glovebox works too (although I don't know the PIN and haven't yet reset it to one of my own devising). I've got the original owner's manual, I've downloaded Alan Garrod's useful list of installer codes and I've trawled the internet for clues but nothing really fits my problem.

Has anyone got any ideas as to what might be wrong?

Failing anything better, can anyone tell me where to find the brain for the alarm so I can unplug the siren until I find out what's wrong? Or even where to find the siren itself?

Thanks in advance, you all know these things better than I do!

Chris 1969

Just happened across these threads:
https://www.scoobynet.com/security-1...no-reason.html
https://www.scoobynet.com/security-1...no-reason.html

nath01, nick172sport and scooby(puppy power) all seem to have the same problem I've got (including the "indicators not flashing" bit that I'd overlooked until now), and put it down to a faulty siren back-up battery.

Does that sound about right to everyone? Any idea where I'll find the siren on my Outback?

Chris 1969

As it happens I've got today off work. I'm meant to be doing some paperwork but, since the sun is shining (but not exactly warm, the frost hadn't melted by 1030 today) it seemed too good a day to miss the chance to fix my alarm fault.

Off to the drive and, by tracing the wiring, I found the alarm siren. I unbolted it and pulled it out on top of the throttle body. Looks to be in good nick, shame about the failed battery.



I couldn't find any obvious way to open it, so decided to hacksaw the back open This worked better than it might've



Since it was still cold, and I had a pot of tea brewing indoors, I unplugged the siren and moved to the relative luxury of the kitchen. A quick clean-up of the plastic swarf and the siren looks like this:



As you can see, I just got away with this. If I was doing it again (and I hope not to) I'd cut a little closer to the back of the siren so I don't nick the edges of the PCB and the battery casing.

Chris 1969

Next, I pulled out the PCB from the siren housing and unplugged it from the speaker.



A bit more cleaning, cut off the cable ties and you get this.



Here's a likely cause of my problem: one of the battery terminals has failed. (Sorry for the bad photo, it's the only one I've got.)



The battery's attached to the PCB with a big sticky foam pad. Carefully cut through the pad with a Stanley knife or similar and the battery is easily removed without damaging the PCB. I then cleaned the residue from the pad off the PCB with some "sticky stuff remover" (which is in essence deodorised BBQ lighter fluid).



Now I need to get a replacement battery and put it all back together.

Chris 1969

The observant among you will have noticed that the case of the siren is held together with two black cross-head screws, located at the top of the mounting slots in the case. You can see one of them in the third photo, just to the right of the "GP" on the battery.

If you come to do this, please try undoing the screws before you move on to hacksawing the back off the siren case If I'd done this the first time I wouldn't now be playing with Araldite Rapid ...

Chris 1969

One visit to Maplin and £9.99 later (OK, so it was lunchtime and I went to KFC too, another £5.49), I have these:



I only need one, but they were on a special offer where the three-pack was the same price as the singles normally are, and the other two are bound to come in handy.

Adding three cable ties and a strip of new sticky foam pad gives you this:



... which I think looks pretty good.

It's all downhill from here. In the immortal words of John Haynes, "Assembly is the reverse of disassembly". Once the Araldite had cured sufficiently everything went back together as it was beforehand. I did have to clear a bit of stray Araldite out of the mounting slots but that was entirely expected.

Right now the car's parked on my drive with the alarm armed and I'm hoping for an undisturbed night. If it all goes horribly wrong I'll be back to let you know!