Alarm remotes / fobs and what I did with a new red fob

First want to say thanks for FChats Gobble. He gave me a great deal on a new set of remotes / fobs that included the red and two black and the new PIN associated with the red.

I made the decision to get a complete set of these for my recently acquired 1999 355 Spider. Fortunately, my car included the original PIN code to allow me to enter the car alarm into programming mode. Unfortunately, my car had only one black fob of the original three.

So what I want to share is what may be new information regarding programming. In the process of adding my three new remotes, one of my new black fobs wouldn't communicate with the car alarm. I think it was just defective out of the box. This left my car in programming mode with the LED flashing away wanting the third fob to be transmitted. I couldn't get the alarm out of programming mode by key or by the two accepted fobs. So its important to note, if you are going to program the alarm with new remotes....have three remotes...can't do it with less than three from my experience. The only thing I didn't try was the battery switch to reset the alarm as I was worried I would brick the unit.

Out of really desperation, I grabbed my original black fob and transmitted it and the car alarm accepted it as the third fob and the alarm returned to normal operation.

It was my understanding that the red fob is keyed to the two black slaves...meaning they are a matched set. In my experience, this was not the case. I do believe the red sets the PIN once the alarm is placed into programming mode, but I think after that, the alarm links any black remote that are transmitted as the number two and three remotes.

This may open the door to adding any black remote of correct frequency to your system if you have your alarm's PIN and your original red remote. This might also mean that a loaner red could be used (providing you know your original PIN and the red remotes PIN) to add two black remotes to your car, allowing a user to avoid the issues with clone fobs and rolling codes.