FTO AUSTRALIA

I came back from OS recently and the car was dead. I thought it was the battery, even though it is a brand new one, so I charged it up overnight anyway. But alas the car still won't start. Nothing happens when I turn the key.

Of course every time I reconnect the battery the alarm goes off so I have to shut that down first. The air-con fires up, the stereo works etc. so the battery appears fine.
Could my alarm system be the issue? Is the immobilizer stopping me from turning the engine over perhaps?

The problem though is that this alarm system is not working properly anyway and I don't know much about it. The remote for starters no longer works and to stop the loud siren I have to turn the ignition on and off 10 times or something like that. I'm wondering if perhaps the immobilizer has it's own battery and it has gone flat or something?

In any case I have no idea what to do about it at this point. The alarm system is a Kopel unit and the only information I could find about it is from this website below...

http://www.kprokorea.com/p1-kr500.htm

I'm no auto-elec however so I really don't have much of an idea on what I'm doing. Are there any tests I could do like pull the fuse for the alarm or something like that and see if I can get it going? If so what fuse? I really have no clue lol.

I'm thinking of getting rid of this alarm system and turfing it if this the cause.

Any help here is a step in the right direction atm. Cheers.

Hey buddy welcome back, hope you had a good time away.

Mate id be putting money on your immobilser, i just had the same problem with mine. It was working fine then all of a sudden i couldnt start my car.

Can you jump start the car either by clutch starting if you have a manual or short circuiting the starter motor (thats what i had to for about a month while i was figuring out the prob).

In the end i gave up and took it to an autop elec, as like you auto electronics is not my strong point. $50 and 1 hr later he by passed the immobilser and it works sweet.

PS what happened the fresh touring website,, it no longer works

For statrters, if you havent done it already, replace the battery in your remote. If you cant turn the alarm off in any 'normal' method, then it will never start as the alarm is doing its job.

I8A4RE wrote:Hey buddy welcome back, hope you had a good time away.

Mate id be putting money on your immobilser, i just had the same problem with mine. It was working fine then all of a sudden i couldnt start my car.

Can you jump start the car either by clutch starting if you have a manual or short circuiting the starter motor (thats what i had to for about a month while i was figuring out the prob).

In the end i gave up and took it to an autop elec, as like you auto electronics is not my strong point. $50 and 1 hr later he by passed the immobilser and it works sweet.

PS what happened the fresh touring website,, it no longer works

Heya! Yeh the trip was great thanks. Africa, Egypt, Jordan, Israel. It was pretty awesome.

Now unfortunately I can't jump start my car in my flat driveway and I don't know how to short circuit the starter motor. I was kinda thinking the auto elec would be my final decision presuming the cost to find the fault would be the most expensive thing. If I can find it myself I thought it would save me some money.
I've checked all fuses and they all seem to be fine so next I'll look into this disconnecting this Kopel system, or at least the immobilizer part.

The fresh touring website died in popularity mate. I tried to promote it as best I could (without cash ) but it seems each FTO website has their own gallery and are generally happy with that.

dstocks wrote:For statrters, if you havent done it already, replace the battery in your remote. If you cant turn the alarm off in any 'normal' method, then it will never start as the alarm is doing its job.

Hi dstocks. Yes I replaced the battery in the remote first thing but it still allowed me to drive the car anyway, before I left the country for six weeks.
What I was told was that my immobilizer may have it's own battery in it and while I was away that went flat and not my car battery. Are immobilizer's having their own battery a normal thing? I have no idea.

I can see the Kopel box underneath the dash on the driver side. Is the immobilizer with that or somewhere else? Total newb here.

What do you think my next step should be?

Well typically, one of the wires that goes to the key mechanism is cut and re-routed via the immobilizer. To disconnect the immobilizer, youd have to find where that has been done. Thats about all I know (and I may be wrong). It might be worth dropping into an alarm specialist and ask them how alarms are normally installed so you get a better idea.

alarm's can have a battary but usually its a back up battery and should have no effect on the immobilser if your car battery is fine

just a suggestion.. check that all of the leads that were coming off your positive terminal are actually connected again ie havnt fallen down when you changed the battery i know it sounds simple but i had to change the battery on my bros falcon about 3 weeks ago and it took us and hor to realise all we had missed was one lead. all the accessories came on but the engine wouldnt start or make a noise.

Thanks cjam I'll try your suggestion first as that's probably the only thing I can do without causing any damage hehe. What you're suggesting dstocks is something I am positive someone else should be doing. Me and Auto Electrical don't get along very well. We never have. It's my fault mainly.

If cjam's suggestion doesn't help me I guess I'll have to bite the bullet and get a specialist to look at it.

Well it's taken me sometime to work this problem out but finally it has been solved. It turns out that yes it was the alarm system, doing what it is supposed to do.
After reconnecting a battery it automatically immobilizes the car and wont let you start. Due to my alarm remote not working I could not get the immobilizer to shutdown.

The manual for the alarm said to do shut down the alarm manually you had to turn the ignition on and off ten times. That works but it only turns the alarm off and not the immobilizer.
What it didn't say in the manual was to hold the 'Power' button down while turning the ignition on and off to reset the remote to the alarm. After that the remote worked perfectly again, unlocked the engine and she fired up first go.

It took six months but there you go.

Nothing wrong with the battery, nothing wrong with the starter motor and the alarm system was simply doing it's job.

So if anyone else has a similar problem hopefully my misery will be their joy hehe.

Thanks to all those who responded. You guys are awesome.

Cheers
Joe