Hello all,

My MkI VRS has a Cobra alarm fitted, i believe it is an 8800 Series.

It's always been a bit temperamental and would go off in error once or twice a week usually. Its linked to the keyfob, usually pressing the lock button twice in quick sucession will result in an audible "beep beep" and a flash of the indicators to show its armed.

Pressing he unlock button once would de-arm, however if you dont give it a few seconds and jump straight into the car, the alarm will go off.

The other day i locked the car up, and whilst the indicators still flashed i noticed that the "beep, beep" was barely audible at all. Today i have done some more testing and have managed to set the alarm of a few times, and can safely say it is nowhere near as loud as it was a few days ago. Put it this way, it used to be lound enough to wake half the street up, i dont think it would wake me up now parked on the drive outside.

Im no expert by any means when it comes to alarms, and as such was looking for any advice on possible causes for this peculiar problem?

Cheers guys

Bizzare... drove it to work and back last night and the problem seems to have gone away.

Having done a bit of googling the issue seems to be commonly linked with water ingress into the siren box. That sort of makes sense, as the car was washed a few days back and hadnt really moved at all until last night. The thing i dont get though is that it has never happened in the past, and i didnt wash it "differently" or anything, so cant really see why its suddenly occurred.

Doesnt seem to be too much to worry about in normal circumstances though as it pezzled down with rain last night and the alarm was still sounding okay this morning

Cheers

Tbh I'd investigate a bit more - it's not exactly an unimportant component is it?

Decades ago, before standard alarms, I'd a Cobra system fitted. The sounder stopped working. The horn was found to be full of water and even when drained it was reduced to a quack rather than a moo.

Ducks.

Had a play about this morning settiung the alarm off deliberatley, all seems to be fine now, except for my ear drums which took quite a battering. I'll just keep an eye on it, see how it goes.

Out of interest and clarification, on my previous cars its always been a case that to double lock the doors you needed to press the lock button twice in quick succession. I take it from reading the owners manual that on the Octavia, pressing the lock button twice actually disables dead locking?

The only thing is, i only get an audible tone when locking the car (which i am assuming it to tell me the alarm is armed), if i press the lock button twice.

Cheers