I hope this can help anyone with car alarm siren problems....mine was driving me mad!

 

My car had been developing intermittent alarm siren problems. I scoured this forum and saw info about replacing the internal batteries in the sealed unit, requiring prizing open the sealed type unit.

(Last weekend I was in Torquay, it was hot and whether this was a factor the alarm could not 'bleating' after several minutes from locking. This was much worse than ever before).

Due to the car's age and mileage (110000) I deferred to replacing the unit as I'm not up to working much on my car.

The breakdown was close to £188 from VW and my kindly mechanic only charged me £30 to take the wheel and arch 'covers' off, release the unit and replace with the new one. With vat it was about £259.

If you are able to do it it will save the mechanics fee.

All now seems good with the alarm.

Here are pics for anyone interested of the old unit which easily sits in your hand and probably weighs less than my iPhone. My mechanic says they now have watch batteries as a power source ?!

There is visible evidence of leakage from the batteries on one solder point from battery to the board. Some leakage got onto my arm and caused a slight 'burning' sensation so it had definitely been leaking which I assume after 12 years would be reasonable to expect.

Therefore I would say don't buy a second hand one!

Pics of the old unit.....the newer units have a different letter in the code now.

 

Edited 23 June, 20232 yr by mydadscar

Hi,

I had a similar problem with the alarm going off.  I decided just to remove the alarm.  This I did and can confirm that it doesn't activate any dash warning lights. 

So this is an option if anyone doesn't want to go to the expense of replacing the alarm.

Bris24.......I wonder though if that would cause concern with possible car insurance claims

It will bring up a non comm fault code on a VCDS or VAG scan, ideally the alarm needs removing from the installation list.

@mydadscar

The insurance assessors won't scan or physically check stuff on a 12 year old Octavia in the event of theft/recovery!