Disarm or not to disarm?

The alarm is the one annoyance I have with my 360. I rarely can disarm, get in and start the car without rearming and disarming again.

 

Something wrong, then. I have the same alarm and it has given no problems in 11 years of ownership. Lots of confusion about the alarm and immobilizer, which are separate systems. The immobilizer rearms 120 seconds after the alarm and immobilizer are disarmed. What is so difficult about that? One easy way to not embarrass yourself is to just arm the alarm when you get out, especially at the gas station. Then you have to disarm to get back into the car and have 120 seconds to start before the immobilizer rearms. If the immobilizer rearms because you delayed 120 seconds looking at the pretty brunette, one push on the fob button gets you two beeps and the immobilizer is disarmed for another 120 seconds.

 

I have to disagree with Taz on this one which I don't often find myself doing. I think its a terrible hateful system...

The Bosch designed and manufactured Alarm & Immobilizer system adopted on the Ferrari 360 and all variants including 360 Challenge Race cars was developed in the 90's and used on many mainstream inexpensive cars too. It was actually designed ruthlessly for cost so all its electronics are cheap and nasty, even back when it was new they were terrible and their lifespan wasn’t expected to exceed a typical 10 year recycling lifespan of average humdrum transport these where expected to be installed on.

On Ferrari’s the kind of design was a huge problem waiting to happen as most Ferrari’s don’t get binned after 10 years, they keep getting repaired and fettled. Finally their design lifespan has started to cascade into multiple costly issues. Some, particularly the immobilizer ones potentially causing many thousands to rectify if it was fitted to a Ferrari. Thankfully if the owner is a member of Ferrarichat they now have options (more on that later)…

Q. Is it that bad…? Yes they really are, maybe I've been unlucky but I've had every single one of the issues described below happen to my system before I finally ripped out the entire thing...

1. Failure and/or Loss of key fobs / loss of pin number

First we saw the problems of missing pin and/or damaged fobs. Very common and almost inevitable when cars change owners. All the expenses that it causes if going via the main dealer network to resolve it are horrendous. Thankfully the fchat community stepped up and members like Gobble and Eric helped many to save many thousands of pounds by perfecting the extraction of the data out of the black and red fobs.

This technique allowed pin code recovery services and use of remotes from other sources like older Ford cars of circa 2000 era.


2. Failure of Alarm Siren

Next saw problems with the system Alarm failure which was inevitable as the system had soldered on batteries that like all batteries where destined to fail at some point. Instead of being designed with detachable batteries (like even a $5 toy would have!) Bosch chose to save a few cents and seal the siren and solder on batteries.

Net result when they fail (not if) but when, they leak acid all over the main circuit board and destroy any possibility for them to be repaired. Nice touch on a Ferrari huh? Even worse is the cost of these sirens is quite insulting when they indeed come in a Ferrari box. Again some owners discovered that alternative manufacturer sirens could be substituted but not being exactly the same wiring they didn’t fully work as intended. So not a perfect substitution but some guys chose this way vs Ferrari parts dealer siren prices.


3. Failure of Immobilizer Unit

Following on from the siren failures we are now seeing the horrendous Immobilizer unit electronic problems starting to occur with regularly. These exhibit all kinds of strange gremlins making an otherwise reliable car into a basket case and for some ruining the whole experience of owning their dream Ferrari. Cars have been sold on just because of random failures in these immobilizers and the potential to cost over $5k to repair. Why so expensive? Well that all happened due to lack of political will to do something about it.

Bit of history but manufacturers soon discovered it was much more profitable for them to ‘pair’ ecu’s used in a vehicle specifically to the vehicle itself with the justification of helping to fight crime. In other words preventing ‘recycling’ from a breakers yards of perfectly good older ECU’s into the used car market.

This resulted was a design where the ecu from one car could not be used at ALL on any other vehicle. All in the name of security but really in the event where the ecu’s really are not stolen they provided absolutely no mechanism to virginize those ecu’s to allow legitimate re-cycling. Not only that but the manufacturers like Bosch didn’t even provide dealers with any way to even offer such as reset service for legitimate non stolen parts recycling purposes, even for a fee. Net result is literally millions of perfectly good ecu’s destined for landfills around the world.

An absolutely a travesty and yet no political leaders even blinked. Still today nothing has been done. This wastes millions of dollars and harms the environment with perfectly good computers going in the bin. It increases costs to repair used cars and helps nobody but those manufacturers and car company profits to be sustained. If your immobilizer breaks you have no choices but to pay right? Compounding the issues are that Ferrari wouldn’t sell you just a single Ignition ECU, so you had to buy them in pairs. Even if your Left and Right Bank Ignition ECU’s are working just fine since they are paired to the immobilizer and Ferrari (legitimately) where concerned about single ecu’s of the wrong version being used on the wrong cars with all kinds of almost impossible to diagnose consequences for the unsuspecting owners.

Well before Swiss Army Knife was developed you literally had to just accept that your wallet would be lightened by literally thousands of dollars. New immobilizer units, new ignition ecu’s and fitting charges at a main dealer can cost well over $5,000 fitted. Ouch. What’s just as bad is that many immobilizer issues don’t even exhibit the behavior you would right expect of a immobilizer failure. For instance you wouldn’t expect ‘random indicator’ blinking to be a symptom of a failing unit but it is just one of the many quirks with others like very poor battery life off a battery tender (some people getting less than one week!!!) due to terrible battery drain issues caused by faulty immobilizer flapping relays. The board I recently saw having this problem got so hot with this happening its possible it could even cause an electrical fire! Have a good read through some of the immobilizer and Swiss army knife threads for detailed descriptions of all of the problems. There are so many its literally staggering how bad this design is!


4. Usability

Whomever designed this system really didn’t think about usability. The ability to enter a pin using the ignition key on/off is just dumb, the automatic re-arm within a few seconds is extremely irritating to any legitimate car owner and most people seem to have to go through the entire hassle of having to sit in the seat and listen for the door lock/unlock before attempting to start the engine. It is tedious and overly complex. A friend of mine joked that most non ‘initiated’ people he’d thrown them the keys to his car had failed to actually start the thing. That’s got to be proof about how bad it really is.

5. Security
The NXP/Philips chip algorithm used in the fobs and the 'secure communications' between fob and immobilizer has been fully cracked and all its weaknesses disclosed by security researchers. Its basically as insecure to someone whom knows what they are doing as a banana...


My personal recommendation is to remove the entire thing, alarm, fobs, tilt sensor, immobilizer, the lot and replace it by a modern keyless entry system or keyless remote plus a tracker and insurance approved immobilizer.

 

@360trev can you solve these same issues on an F430? My alarm is whacked and I have other bizarre electrical gremlins seemingly related. I would prefer a more modern security system. Or at least not have a non-performing one!


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Yes, search F430 Immobilizer for the discussion thread about F430.

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360trev:

Have I missed something, or is your 360 immobilizer delete product now available for sale?

An inquiring mind would like to know.

Thanks.

 

Not yet but I've been manually re-flashing early adopters ecu's who have sent them to me. I've successfully deleted the immobilizers out of 360 Spider and Coupe's, Challenge Stradale's, 360 Challenge racer cars and even some F430's. Later once I can finish my OBD tool people can do this themselves but until that point its an ecu's out job which takes time and effort but from the immobilizer delete perspective achieves the same thing.

 

Trev- If you understand how the system works, have three fobs and the PIN, the system works fine. Mine has worked flawlessly for 11 years, like I said. For many owners it seems inconvenient because they have little knowledge on how it is supposed to work and have missing fobs and PINs.

Plus now, there are multiple sources for fob sets, PINs from red fobs or immobilizers , etc, which caused problems in the past.

 

That and cloned fobs are an issue. Like a bomb waiting to go off.


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@Taz Genuinely Intrigued, are you really on your original factory fitted siren? I didn't expect anyone was by now with the known documented battery failures. Mine died over a decade ago!!!

The shelf life of many of those components is already well past their designed in operational lifespan. Capacitors, mechanical relays and so forth, even some of the soldering is getting dry joints now at 20 years old.

I guess considering they have to operate in the harsh environment of a car with wildly varying voltages, temperatures, vibration and levels of moisture most of these immobilizers have done well all things considered.

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Trev:

I appreciate your answering my post. As an EE, I am fascinated with your work, I look forward when your product is available for sale.

BTW, since you mention failed capacitors, isn't it a real pain to identify a failed cap, e.g. an electrolytic that shows no outward leakage?

Jim

 

Trev- Affirmative, original siren, etc. Only thing I did was program in a new set of fobs 11 years ago because she only came with one and the PIN. Wrote a document on how to do that and it was used by dozens of owners until the videos on how to do it hit You-Tube.

I think it helps to live in the desert. Also helps to understand the system.

 

Wow impressive!

I've never heard of that before... Just couldn't imagine those batteries lasting so long. Might be worth doing a bit of preventative work now and replacing them while they haven't leaked.. This reminds me of the belts debate.. How long is too long to wait?

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True but penalty is a lot smaller.

 

Very true

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Trev,
My 04 Spider has its original siren and three fobs. I even had an original remote battery which lasted until 2011. Other than replacing the remote batteries, the whole system has worked perfectly since new.

Now my 456M siren, that’s a different story....

 

Are you in a hot dry location too? Wonder if it's linked to moisture?

I didn't expect any batteries of this type to last more than about 7 years... Very surprising indeed.

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Car was originally sold at FoW. Other than the three years I had it in in SOCAL, it’s been in DC.
Hot AND humid a good portion of the year.

 

Paul- You just have to be smarter than the system. None of those things that happened to you have happened to me in 11 years. Sounds like you keep forgetting the 120 seconds.

 

This is the 21st century, but the 360, 550, 575, etc are 90s designs and 20 years old. Expecting them to be 21st century products is wishful thinking.

 

You pm me.. Done tonnes of them now.