430 My very first problem, alarm goes off randomly.

I got my very first problem after more than 7 months of flawless ownership. Three days ago I forgot to garage the car after a short drive and it rained very hard right afterwards, alarm start going of randomly in the night a few hours after the rain stopped, decided to leave the door open after I garaged the car with the plan to tackle the problem the day after. In the morning, I noticed there was a minor leak on the passenger side where the upper tip of the door mirror seal meet the door seal, water was streaking through the top of the tweeter pod, nothing major but the carpet was a bit wet right under the speaker panel, so I assumed alarm going off randomly was from a short somewhere on the door panel from the water stream, microswitches or door switch perhaps. I dried everything and did a little Macgyver with the door seal and rectified the water leak temporarily (complete new seals for all doors on order from Eurospares), sprayed all electrical plugs related to the door with electrical contact cleaner and called it a day, alarm was dead quiet for the whole day. I took another short drive today and again forgot to garage the car and it rained hard again, just my luck normally it’s dry as a bone this time of the year, I need to get my garage renovation done ASAP, so hard getting in and out right now making me lazy to garage the car! The rain has stopped about 3 hours ago and my car is already inside the garage since about 2 hours ago, still drenching wet and the alarm just randomly going off again just 15 minutes ago….. so obviously it’s not from the leak on the passenger side because that’s temporarily rectified and I couldn’t find any wet spot on the same area today. I highly suspect this has something to do with electrical short caused by water because previously I never leave my car parking outside under heavy rain, but due to the garage renovation it got rained heavily twice on the last three days and alarm went off randomly after those two events. Any pointers about where should I check first? I’ll be buying launch X431 Pro tomorrow, thanks God for instant 2 hour shipping

 

Nice, thanks for the information!

 

Make a lot of sense. I noticed that in the past 2 weeks I have to get closer and closer to the car to unlock the door. It wasn’t like that before, I used to be able to unlock the door from my terrace, now I have to actually stand beside the car to unlock it. At first I thought it’s a simple remote key battery and I am too lazy to change it because it’s still working, your assessment makes perfect sense considering the signs I have been experiencing. Thanks so much.

At first I suspected water leak somewhere shorting security related wires but now I changed my mind.

 

Scott thanks a lot for the kindest offer! I will take you up to it if I am stuck, otherwise I will try my best first. Let me know if you ever plan to visit Bali, I will show you a good time there.

I plan to do it myself like I usually do with all of my hobby car/motocycle, I have personal workshop and most of the tools anyway, not that I do not want to support indy in this dire economic situation, but even a trusted indy will slit my throat as things are bloody expensive here (luxury cars are 200-300% more expensive than USA). I got lazy 6 months ago and dropped my old 2003 Land Cruiser to my trusted indy for a complete refresh and got slapped with $20.000 (7k parts 13k labor and supplies) bill while the car only worth $50-60K if I want to sell it…kicked myself on the butt (I really am flexible enough to kick me own butt) and never again…

I have been ordering from Eurospares simply because of my geographical location. While price is relative, it is the shipping that’s killing me here in the far east. Eurospares uses Fedex and cost very little to ship to me, everything also always arrives in less than 7 days because of Fedex. American companies tend to rely on USPS only and USPS is really really expensive and terrible service in the worst possible manner in term of international shipping. I didn’t check with Ricambi simply because of my assumption that most American companies will rely on USPS only

Thanks!!

 

Usually most of my American customers comes around June-Sept/Oct, weather is perfect and things are heavenly here during those months. Please come and spend your money here for the local economy , Bali suffered heavily during pandemic.

By your driver’s side means passenger side on my RHD car. I will have a look. WOW! What a help, much appreciated!! Exciting!!

 

Wondering if I could X-ray the siren, locate the battery position, cut case and replace the battery? Just for fun and knowledge for the forum members, I’ll still order new replacement, my labor is free anyway.

 

Even sweeter if I can properly replace just the battery! I’ll just try to get the best cell possible. Thanks a bunch for the tips

 

Out of topic but which version of launch should I buy for F430? There are many available such as Pro Mini, V4, etc. With the genuine Launch price are vastly different between versions here. Thanks!

 

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Fortunately my staff came to my house just to drink coffee and smoke, very unfortunate for him though. Thanks God for the unexpected help, there is no way I can curl myself inside that trunk for 20 minutes with my bad back. I am continued to be amazed on how easy it is working on Ferrari compared to Porsche.

 

Siren location will always be under brake booster/driver’s side regardless of LHD or RHD car. Found out the hard way after carefully peeling off the virgin vapor barrier on the left hand side just to find out the siren is on the opposite side, decided to just tear off the vapor barrier to later replace with proper waterproof sound deadener.

 

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Very easy to pry open the siren housing, just pry open the soft rubbery tabs and the case will separate itself.

Look at where the battery was assembled…LOL!! Right here in my country some 17 years ago… what a wonderful world of commerce…

 

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Found the root cause of the problem. One of the battery terminal is extremely corroded, so lithium battery will leak too. Now I just have to figure out what material to use to replace the corroded terminal and how to securely solder the terminal to the battery poles.

 

Aye aye capt! Happy to report that voltage is at 6.4V, everything assembled back looking like it did from the factory, remote key operating range definitely has improved tremendously. I had to file and rough up the battery terminals so solder would stick to it, make sure to use good solder to avoid heating up the new cell too much, I used Dremel butane powered solder and I find it much easier to use than my desktop Dekko solder, I only had to give it a little dab here and there to fully melt and stick the lead barely warming up the new cells, whatever it is once roughed up, soldering it is a breeze. I also deliberately sprayed everything with electrical cleaner and lubricants prior to re assembly to avoid future corrosion problem.

Huge thanks for the tips and pointers!!

 

I believe so, has been on locked position for a while now and I have yet to hear alarm going off. The greatly extended range of the key should be a strong indicator too I suppose.