430 Random Alarm tripping

Hi Everyone!

I just picked up my first Ferrari (2005 F430), and while I'm loving the car, the alarm is giving me anxiety attacks! The alarm would trip for no apparent reason, and the worst part is pressing the key FOB won't stop the alarm...it has to do its cycle of siren on/off for several minutes before it just stops. This is my first post...and it's probably going to be a long one, but I want to give as much detail on each occurrence as possible so hopefully someone can help me resolve it.

Day 1
picked up the car in a cold drizzle, after about a 45 minute drive, I stopped at a friend's place, locked the car and about 15 minutes later the alarm sounded & we couldn't get it to stop. It would sound off for several seconds, pause for a few seconds, then sound off again. After several minutes it would stop altogether. There is also a kill switch in the front that only lowered the intensity of the siren when I removed the kill switch key....I believe I read on these forums that the siren has a backup battery. I parked the car in my garage later that night, but didn't arm/lock it and in the morning, noticed the alarm light blinking an odd pattern (even though the doors were unlocked). It was "Blink, Blink, long Blink" repeating over & over. I opened the door, and the alarm sounded, but this time, when I pressed the key FOB, the alarm chirped & shut off.

Day 2
weather was better and I was out with the car for a few hours. It started to drizzle again before I got home, and once again, after parking the car in the garage & locking & arming it, after a short time, the alarm sounded again, and nothing I would try would stop it. It had to run through it's cycle for a few minutes then it would stop.

The next few days were fine, I could arm & disarm whenever I wanted without issue, then earlier this evening with the car still sitting in the garage, the alarm sounded again. Usual scenario, nothing I could do would stop it. The only difference was tonight, it was dry & parked in my garage, the other times were when the car was wet.

I'm hoping it is a bad alarm contact, but if anyone has heard of this happening before, or if there are any known issues with the alarm, I'd greatly appreciate any insight!

Thanks in advance.

 

Mine was doing this for a while too... I had to repace the unit, bad battery (was a 2004 360). After the alarm siren unit was changed, no issues.

 

Thanks for the reply! Just to be clear does the alarm siren have a battery built into it as well? I know there must be a siren battery somewhere on the car as with the kill switch off, it still sounded (although at a somewhat lower volume). I wonder if there is any way to test the unit. I'm hoping to avoid throwing different parts at it until it stops. The worst part is because it's so random, it will be hard to be certain the problem is solved.

 

Yes, the battery is integrated into the siren itself.

We have them at Ricambi America.

 

Is there a way to test it to confirm a faulty siren is causing the random tripping of the alarm?

 

If you are running the car and the alarm light stays on... guarantee that its a bad battery!
If not, its still possible its the battery.
Not sure how you could test it short of removing it and running a multimeter on it...