CAR ALARM BATTERIES..........

Bruce:

Batteries for the handheld or the alarm in the car?

Art

 

Always looking out for other people. You're the man, Bruce...

 

BW - My hero!

Actually, the siren box is $550.00 new and the dealer does not sell replacement batteries so it's either a new box or...uhm a new box according to them.

I think these batteries work for model years 2002 and earlier. Don't bother trying to find the replacement batteries anywhere else...been there, done that. No one else was able to actually produce them except for Bruce (even in Europe).

Another f-chatter was kind enough to send me instructions on how to cut open the siren box to remove and replace the batteries. PM me if you need them.

Frances

P.S. Indications that your siren box batteries are dead: 1). the red light on the dash stays lit after you start the ignition and 2). intermittent loud "chirp, chirp, chirp" when you start the car.

 

Below is a picture of the location of the alarm on a 355. Just cut
the unit along the seem and replace batteries. You can get to it from the left front. You have to remove the wheel and the vertical panel.
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BROTHER BRUCE - YOU HAVE MAIL. I'M IN.

 

Bruce, that's really great of you to have figured this out!!!

I don't have a 355, but can someone explain this to me..........I always thought that car alarms worked off of the cars main battery.........do all alarms have a seperate "siren battery"........how does it work? Are they all different? I'm just a little confused.

thanks

 

On the 355 and 360, the main alarm (door locks and ignition kill) are hooked to the main battery. The siren works off the two batteries in the siren box. So, even when the box was removed from my car, the alarm remote would still lock doors and kill ignition like normal. Had it not been for the red light and occassional chirping, I would not have known the siren was out.

Tony - nice pics. Much better than any diagram. Not sure where the box is located on the 360 since I had the mechanic pull it out for me.

 

Thanks Speed, I have more pictures here

http://www.tonycricelli.com/F355/alarm/techart.html

that can guide people as they starting cutting the plastic. Initially I used a razor blade since I did not know what to expect, I think when I cut it open again, I am going to use a circular blade attached to a dremmel tool.
--tony

 

Thanks Tony for your excellent advise. I had the same symptom on my 360. A visit to the garage confirmed that the problem was comming from a low-battery from the alarm (that's what their box connected to the car said). The guy was kind enough to show me where it is located, and it turned-out to be a very simple operation !!!!

So, on a 360 (year 2000) you just need to remove the right and front panels in the boot, and the alarm is located on the right side (see pictures below). You only need to unscrew a bit (no need to remove them), and the box will slide out easily.

Then I opened it using a cutter, measured around 8V for the 2 batteries in serie, I cleaned the batteries with sand-paper, and voila.....

BTW, the chief-mechanic at my local Ferrari dealer showed me a 550 having the exact same symptom.....
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The same unit is used on the 550 too. Brother Bruce save me a $1000AUD replacement alarm unit with his battery fix!

 

My alarm batteries are OK for now, but one of my black remotes is dead. Tried new battery, nada. Dealer said needed all new remotes for 1.6M or some idiotic #. I am using other black remote, and red remote works fine.
Anybody see this happen??

 

I thought the bllack ones could be replaced/programmed, but the red master key was irreplaceable.

 

I went through the process describee below for swaping out the alarm batteries. First thing I noticed is a foma type vapor barrier behing my front panel-anyone else have that? Everything wasa hidden behind it (alarm, master cylinder, etc.) and I had to cut through it.

My box looked like all the other boxes, but was really difficult to open. Extremely hard 1/8" plastic that only the Dremel could cut through.

Then I see this: The batteries are different shape and are soldered to the circuit board with really thin delicate strips. no way to remove them without destroying the board. This is a Dec. '01 production 360 spider sold in '02. Anyone have any experience with this?

What do I do now? Where can I buy a Bosch box? (or any other compatible box)
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My 2001 360 alarm makes no noise when I lock or unlock the door. the red light flashes when the car is armed and locked. and solid red when I drive...

Any recommendations, do I need a new battery in the horn like the above picture?

-A

 

Forgot about this..............

Bruce any fresh ones around? No hurry if they need to be ordered.

 

Sorry about all the typos in my last post.

This new style alarm works off NiMH rather than NiCAD batteries (2X3.6 Volts, 140 Mah), and after playing wth it for the past 3 hours, does not appear fixable like the older units where you could just drop in a new set of batteries and go.

So it looks like I (and anyone else with the non-replaceable battery alarm) will need to find some complete Bosch boxes. I have already emailed Bosch Australia where these are made, but I have a feeling it's one of those proprietary Ferrari parts made by Bosch that will cost 10X normal price.

If your red light stays on all the time, and you no longer hear your horn or see your lights flash when you press the remote, then this box is dead in your car as well. You can still remotely lock and unlock the car and drive it, but the red light will remain on.

If anyone has a clue where to get the Bosch alarm boxes kindly post here.

 

This is the same situation I had on my 2000, 550 when I bought the car three years ago, with the exception that it did beep when locking and unlocking the doors. The best indication of bad alarm batteries is the alarm light stays on (solid) when the car is driven. I was tipped off to this being a alarm battery problem by another F-chatter, so I removed the alarm, cut it open at the seams with a hacksaw .... found corrosion on the two batteries and contacts. Cleaned them, charged them overnight and my alarm worked fine for about 6 more months ...... I then tried to find replacement batteries ..... searched the whole internet, found a few sites in Europe that listing them , but no luck getting any replies to my numerous inquires ...... so I considered replacing them with an off size battery (correct voltage and miliamp rating, just wrong size/fit) but due to space constraints inside the unit this meant running wires through the case, attaching the batteries externally .... so in the end just sprung for a new unit at the dealership.... around $ 500.00 if I recall correctly. No problems since, but when this one craps out, I'll buy the replacement batteries from BWS550.

I'm certain that if this alarm unit was in a Honda (afterall it's a Bosch unit not a Ferrari unit), the Honda dealer would probably charge $ 100. Welcome to Ferrari-land.

 

Could someone make a pic from the back of the unit, i need to see the connector. I am an electronics mechanic and a have build a lot of alarms into car's.

Normally this unit's are made for more car's and not just for ferrari. But it is possible that ferrari has secured this siren for their own use only, but i am curious about what connector is on it.

Thanx in advance...

 

The first picture shows what I have found in about the last 5 sirens that I have replaced. The batterys leak and eat up the circuit board. So if you were to catch it early you may get lucky with replacing the batterys.

The last 2 pics are the connector pics for ytosun. Hope that you can see them.
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my 355 alarm stopped beeping when triggering on and off the door locks... any ideas? This happened just after when I replaced my bumper