Need help with Alpine 8025A car alarm

[Jonathan Klein]

I have an old Alpine 8025A alarm in my 1993 Civic SI. (The alarm might
actually be an 8026A).

I started having problems with it a while back. What was happening was it
was not disarming from the remote. However, it was an intermittant problem,
at first only happening once in a while and not very serious. All I would do
was hit the button on the remote a few more times and it would eventually
disarm. Mysteriously, arming with the remote was no problem.

Slowly the problem got worse until one day it would not disarm at all when I
was in a packed grocery store parking lot. I had to open the door,
triggering the alarm, and fumble around for the valet switch to shut it off
while passers by gave me odd looks.

I changed the batteries in both remotes and tried each of them but still had
the same intermittant problem. The alarm was essentially useless since I
couldn't risk being in another situation where it refused to disarm.

I thought the installation might have been the problem since it was
installed by a dealership where the car was purchased, not a place that
installs alarms. So I brought it to an alarm shop and had them re-do the
installation. Unfortunately the problem did not go away.

To me it looks like the brain is toast. However, I am not an expert in
alarms and perhaps the problem is a simple fix. So I thought I would post to
this group and find out if anyone here has any ideas on what the problem
might be.

-Jonathan Klein

 

[Aegis]

Sounds, to me, like either the receive circuitry in the 'brain' or the
transmit circuitry in your remotes could be bad. Have you tried a new
remote? If so, or if that doesn't work, I'd have them change out the
'brain'. Maybe even to another brand. The wiring won't change, so they
should just have to install a new one and program the remotes for it and be
done in an hour tops.

 

[Jonathan]

I haven't tried a new remote since I would have to buy it to try it.
Apparently, to program the remote they have to scratch some jumper
connections off which permanently sets the remote.

However, I figured that it was unlikely to be the remotes since the
problem seemed to occur at the same time using both remotes. But, it
is tough to diagnose since the problem started occuring only
intermittantly over a period of about a year, so I can't say for sure
that it happened at the same time using both remotes.

-Jonathan