Hi Guys,

Back in December I had a Viper 791xv installed on my G but now I'm having problems with it. At times the alarm does not go off. Example; I arm the alarm and I remain inside the car, and then open the door. The alarm should go off but does not. This happens every so often. Do you guys think there’s a wire loose somewhere? I'm going to take it back to the place I had it installed and have them solder the connection points instead of using crimp connectors. Is soldering the connections better? Or did the shop just do a ****ty job?

Thanks guys.

 

I have had several problems with viper alarms. Most of the time it was the opposite of you, the damn thing wouldn't shut up and go off for no reason. Planes flying overhead would set it off with the sensitivity turned all the way down. I will be looking into other alarms this time around.

A wire may have come loose, it's not uncommon. It should go off when the door is opened as long as it is armed. Review your manual and make sure it is not in valet mode or something.

 

Thanks. I made sure its not on valet mode. Its weird, it works sometimes than at times it doesnt...There may be a loose connection somewhere.

Do you guys think soldering is the better option instead of using the crimp connectors like I have at the moment?

Thanks

 

There are a few options with crimp connectors and I think they are mainly used for ease of install and unistall. I am not sure the type they used on yours, but I think some come with the kit. You can look into some better connections that may be more reliable before you go the solder route. Also check the ground, installers have gotten sloppy there before. Check to be sure it is a good location and secured.
Soldering is always a more sound method, but time consuming and possibly difficult in certain areas. Make sure you know what you are doing while soldering and not to get a cold solder connection.

 

You should solder all wires when working with cars. Moistuer and vibration will both cause crimp connectors to fail, and the car environment has lots of both.

When arming the car make sure you wait about 60 seconds before trying to set the alarm off. Depending on where the installer hooked up the door pin trigger you may have some dome light delay issues going on. I would hope that they would hook the door trigger directly to the door pins, but that involves using diodes, and some installers will use the dome light to save time.

One thing you can check is to arm the alarm with the door OPEN. If the alarm chirps (the arm chirp) and then shortly chirps again it indicates that a zone is tripped upon arming (since the door is open). If the alarm only chirps once then the warning chirp has been disabled, indicating that the installer is using the dome light signal. You can disable this warning so that the customer doesn't get a 'false' zone tripped warning every time they arm the car because the dome light takes up to 30 seconds to shut off once you close the door.

One of the things I loved about insalling at Circuit City was that it was company policy to solder EVERY wire and we got paid per hour, not per job, so we could take our time and do things right.

 

Oh, and I won't install anything but Viper alarms now (although I don't often install any thing these days that I don't make myself). They always work out of the box, something that I can't say about other alarms I've installed over the years.

 

Thanks KPierson,

I'll check this out tomorrow morning. But I'm pretty sure I've waiting a few minutes before opening the door to see if the alarm would go off. Most of the time it works but it should work all the time. I'll take it to back to the installer and have him reinstall it but this time to solder every connection. I've always had viper alarms in my cars, they are a great systems. I think this is just an installation error. Thanks for your thougths guys