Traveling for 3 weeks, kill switch or not?

Maybe park it in a secure location that has electricity while you are away?

 

Thanks Steve. That's really useful. I suppose I will just have to drive the car every day so that I don't need to worry about keeping the battery charged

 

There is a manual release under the left side of the dash.

 

Hey guys, sorry for bumping an old topic but did we ever conclude if it was fine to lock and unlock the car with the key while the battery was disconnected? I'll be away for 2 weeks and also live in a high rise with no access to an outlet. Don't want to risk it dying.

Was thinking of using the kill switch and locking the door manually.


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I did this for months before I moved to a new house and it was absolutely fine. It's actually what the Ferrari mechanic told me to do.

 

so you just lock the car using your key and unlock again, before reconnecting the battery switch? (just wanted to clarify that the door locks do work without battery)

Thanks!

 

Yes, but each door needs to be unlocked separately as with the battery off the central locking doesn't work.

 

Got it. and to start it back up, just plug it back in, enter radio code and start?

 

Yep, that's it, although I do leave it a couple of minutes after switching the battery back on before firing the engine up to let the electronics reset themselves...I think that's what they do!

 

Don't you have a friend that you can bring the car to that has a garage. A case of beer is customary payment for such a task of using my electric to store your car on a tender for 3 weeks. These cars wig out when they do not have the proper voltage.

 

OK. I am not a rocket scientist so I can't calculate how long the battery will survive. However, this is what I would do considering your situation.

I assume your horse is in the garage. Therefore, I would not lock the door for the car. I do not want any battery to be drained if not needed. I do not lock the car myself...

I would not use the kill switch. I did that for the curiousity and bizzare things happened afterwards. After turning the kill switch back on, you could start the car, drive the car but all of sudden, alarm goes off every 3 minutes while driving... Confused as hell... Got out of the car, alarm the car, de-alarm the car and it was fine. I did not know before. Then you will have to put the passcode for radio and little things... After that, I just knew it is better off not to deal with the "Kill Switch" for a non mechanical useless around the car but loves driving person which is me. I just hook up with battery tender during weekdays or if I do not drive for more than 3 days.

Is there anyway you could find a friend that you could trust, so that you could put your baby in his/her garage and hook it up with a battery tender?

 

I have used the kill switch for 3 weeks and no problems with the car coming back to it after that time. Starts and runs just fine. A healthy battery in the first place is important.

 

Um, did you follow the ECU relearn procedure before driving it and during the first few miles?

 

You shouldn't have to use the ECU relearn procedure after using the kill switch. The Ferrari mechanics told me that there's no need. I've never done and my can runs perfectly.

 

you can use the kill switch on a 430 with no issues - have done it many times

 

I was told the opposite by my mechanics. To be clear, I was told it will also learn on its own eventually without following the procedure but it's best to follow the procedure and it will be all set very quickly.

 

Last Winter (From Nov to April) I stored my car in my daughter's heated underground condo parking. I monitored the battery every weekend when I visited my graddaughter and on the 2nd weekend it showed 11.3 V dc.

So this is what I did.

I went to the local auto car parts store and bought a huge 980 cold crank, 135 reserve (mins) and 80 amps battery. I charged it fully, connected it to my F battery using 6 Ga wires. Now, every 2 weeks I disconnect it, take it upstairs , connect it to a 25 amp charger, play with my granddaughter for 4 or more hrs, take it back downstairs and continued this for 6 months. In April she fired at first attempt.

Oh, I bought one of those small airport trolleys you use for suitcases without wheels. This way I wheeled the battery around with ease.

Crude, but it was better that letting her freeze in the unheated cold house garage.

 

It was kind of mentioned a few posts back by I'm not clear how to turn off using the main kill switch without the alarm sounding a few seconds after.

Can somebody tell me the step by step procedure from the moment you get out of the car? Thanks

 

Your alarm should not go off if you use the kill the switch. However, it's been reported that the alarm may go off if your alarm module has been replaced with the non-OEM GM unit.

 

Yeah that seems tis be the case. I reread that thread and I show the same symptoms of a non-OEM unit: no sound when alarm is triggered but with sound when you turn off with the kill switch.

The mechanic replaced the siren when I brought the car for all the issues I've been having (which were solved fortunately). I guess he used the GM one.

No solutions to this?


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Unfortunately, I am not aware of a solution except for replacing the alarm module with an OEM unit. I think the Ricambi part is about $300 or $350.

You could also buy a used unit on ebay, but the risk you are running is that an older unit won't work because of leaking internal batteries. That's what happened to me - I bought a used unit from an Fchatter just to play with and found that the batteries leaked all over the circuit board.

There might be a way to silence the alarm with an external switch mounted in the cabin, but I haven't done enough testing to confirm that.

 

Yes just don't lock the car with the fob. Use the kill switch first and then lock the doors manually with the key. That's what I used to do.