Disable Ignition Cut-off

My wife's 1998 Honda Accord has a security device installed that cuts off
the ignition switch after about 30 seonds of shutting off the engine. The
button on the remote must be pressed to enable ignition again and also
unlocks the doors if they were locked. This feature has been a terrible
pain and now one of the remotes is not working. Transmit light comes on,
but does not reset the system.

The remote does not match the one shown in the owners manual for the car,
so I am not sure if it is a Honda system or not and I don't have any
further documentation.

Does anyone know if this system can be disabled?

Thanks,
Dave Patnaude

 

Not easy to guess about this without knowing what type of alarm system
it is. Usually the main unit is mounted somewhere in / under the dash.
You can remove the lower dash cover under the steering wheel fairly
easily. Usually a screw or two (often hidden behind the coin pocket) and
a number of clips. Peek inside there and see if you can read a model
number and a manufacturer on a box that looks like an alarm unit. You
are likely looking for a box about 3 1/2" x 3 1/2", somewhere around
3/4" thick. Typically mounted with tie-wraps or other method that looks
quite non-stock. While you are under there, look for the valet switch.
You most likely will need it to reprogram the features you don't want.

When you say it cuts off the ignition switch, what exactly do you mean?
Do you mean that you can not engage the starter, or do you mean that
power to everything is off even if you turn the key to the "RUN"
position?

Both the alarm unit and the remotes will have FCC ID numbers on them. If
you poke around on http://www.fcc.gov, you'll find a place where you can
look up the manufacturer if you know the FCC ID. This may or may not
help, often the actual manufacturer is not the one whose name is printed
on the box.

If you find the manufacturer and model of the alarm you can probably
locate the manual for it on the web. http://www.dei.com/ is a good
starting point, they make alarms under a variety of different names
(Clifford, Viper, etc.).

 

There is power through the Run position, but the starter will not engage
until the unlock button is pressed on the remote.

My wife has been stuck by this feature a few times when the battery in the
remote has become too weak to reset the system and no her remote is dead.

No valet switch was ever shown to us when we purchased the car, but I will
check around under the dash panel.

The only ID easily known at the moment is on the remote: ATV.

Thanks,
Dave

 

That is a configurable option on most newer systems, so you should be
able to turn it off once you get the instructions for the alarm system.

That is just classic. When I bough my '94 Civic the dealer put in a
non-Honda alarm and neglected to tell me where the valet switch was. It
took quite a bit of searching to find it, it was mounted to a flange on
the steering column.

Did you find an FCC ID on the remote? If you are in the US, the remote
will have an FCC ID number printed somewhere on the unit. I know
Excalibur uses the ATV trade mark on some of their alarms, check
http://www.caralarm.com/manuals.html and see if you can find a manual
that looks like it would apply to your alarm system.

 

I dug around under the dash tonight and the only identifier I could see
on the unit was Model REC-9. A Google search and the manual page provided
did not turn up anything for this model.

The Executive/Model One had the same remote shown in their manual, but
the instructions for setting the options did not work with this model.

I tried to trace the wires from the valet position of the unit, but they
just went into a taped mass of wires and I didn't feeling like pulling it
all apart tonight.

Oh well.

Thanks,
Dave