A new failure "Service Theft Alarm". Alarm replaaced two years ago...

[sgould]

Today the "Service Theft Alarm" raised its head again.  The original alarm lasted 15 years before it failed.  The refurbed one I fitted teo years ago seems to have died    Is there likely to be any other reason than a battery failure in the alarm? 

I'll put the Tech2 on it tomorrow and see.  Anything particular I should be looking for?

[Audax]

This is old knowledge from when I was working in the trade (15 years ago now!) but when evaluating refurb alarm units and SID units to keep in stock I'd see quite a few which were on the cheaper side of refurbs which didn't replace capacitors and used the wrong kind of batteries, there's a chance someone is working on the basis of using cheaper parts thinking that a Saab won't be on the road in 2 years or that the owner will have changed or that after 2 years you'll just pay again for a repair, so my guess would be siren has failed again.

[sgould]

Yes, you are right!  I got the Tech2 on the car this morning and it has the Code B1785 Siren battery low.   It wasn't a cheap refurb

I spent a while playing with Tech2 to try and remove the Alarm.  I think that I have disabled all the inputs and siren, but the "Service Theft Alarm" message won't go away.   

[Audax]

I think you might still need to physically remove the siren even if you disabled it with tech-2 as if it's present it will still flag a fault, I'm not certain though.

[sgould]

I thought the same, so I took it out. 

I put it down and started to put things back together, then I turned round and found that water was running out of the alarm!!

Tea break now.  I'll finish reassembling without an alarm later.   I didn't want to risk breaking the arch liner, so I eased off the side of the bumper, removed the headlight, found access was still very tight, so I unscrewed the wing and that moved out enough to make enough room for my big hands and fat fingers.

[sgould]

All back together without the alarm, but the "Service Theft Alarm" is still present

[carrera]

Not much help I know, but having removed the sirens from some, or perhaps all of my cars, I don't have a warning message, so there's definitely a way to do it with Tech 2

[sgould]

One suggestion is to set the alarm in TWICE to Horn only, to force it to ignore the siren.  But I'll have a longer play tomorrow.

 I had a small additional issue to deal with.  As it was a warm day I opened the windows while i was inside with the Tech2.  When I went to move a coat out of the back seat, I found the window surround had moved down with the glass.  It's back up and has some lube added to the runner...

[carrera]

One suggestion is to set the alarm in TWICE to Horn only, to force it to ignore the siren.

Seems vaguely familiar 

[sgould]

Ummmmm...

Hair shirt for a week.

It's all sorted.  Guess who forgot to clear the error codes after disabling the alarm. 

Just to set out what I did on Tech2.

Went into TWICE.
Chose "Programming".
Chose "Without " for siren, movement sensor and glass break sensor.
Ignore the message that warning I was choosing a non-optimal setting.
Left all the other settings as is.  It runs through the car. RHD. Heated front and rear seats. electric passenger seat, etc.
Then left it to re-program.

And a day later, cleared the error code. 

If I had left the alarm in place and disabled the options as above, it would also have probably have done the trick, but no doubt, soon, I would have got the random alarms from the almost dead battery.

[carrera]

Your experience grows every day 

[sgould]

A quick update.  The alarm was removed.  Today I had a spare hour, so I decided to dismantle the alarm unit and see if it was repairable.  It wasn't.  It's scrap.

The PCB is badly corroded and not repairable.