Hello all:

I have a 98 Se with the factory alarm/keyless entry system. This morning, my alarm was going off for no reason -- no broken windows, no popped doors or trunk. I reset it and went back inside. Abotu 10 mins later, it goes off again!!! When I used the key fob to activate the alarm, the lights blinked twice like usual, but when I went to deactivate it, the lights didn;t blink once like they normally do. I figure something is wrong, so When I go to breakfast, I don't use the keyfob, but manually lock the door.

When I come back out a patron tells me my alarm was going off. I pulled the trunk panel and checked the connectors on the keyless unit. BTW, I have not had my car into the shop or done any work on it besides replacing the coil packs and power antennae motor. Then, when I go to leave the parking lot, I pressed my horn to move a car out of the way and the horn gets stuck on!! What the hell is going on????

When I got home, I pulled the battery terminals to check them, checked the underhood button and eventually pulled the 7.5 fuse for the alarm. When I went to use the key fob, the lights blinks twice to lock the door, but when I press the button to unlock the door, I don't get any blinking lights. Is my keyless unit going out?? What else should I check?

If anyone has any suggestions/solution I would be grateful. I really don't want to take it to a fly-by-night alarm shop and especially don't want to go to the dealership.

Thanks again!!!

Ted, Chicago

 

Would really appreciate some help on this one. I hate electrical!!!!

 

**** UPDATE ****

I may have to start a stickie on this if I finally diagnose the problem. I called several Nissan Dealers and tried to probe the techs for a little info. As expected, they simply said "bring it in and we can check it out for you for $110.00." Yeah right. Then, I called everythingnissan.com and talked with Dan Smith and tried to figure out what switches are in the trunk area and what could be shorting out. According to the schematic, there are three switches in the trunk: trunk lamp located in the passenger trunk hinge, lock switch solenoid and lock switch that somehow goes around the lock cylinder.

I will check the hinge switch and see whether it is working properly, but from the symptoms I am experiencing, I think it is a shorted out lock switch. I read another thread about a similar problem -- it says there is a TSB on the SE model rear spoiler design allowing water to enter the trunk lid and short out the switch. The member simply unplugged his switch and didn't mention anything about finding out where the spoiler was leaking and/or how to seal it up. I don't like by-passing a problem, so I will be pulling the trunk lid apart in an attempt to diagnose the problem for other members who may experience this down the road as our cars age.

I can't believe I am the only 4th gen owner who has experienced this problem. I will post what I find out after checking the trunk hinge switch first, since it is the easiest to get to. Then, I will pull the trunk lid cover and see if there is any moisture near the lock assembly switches. The only other thing I can think of is that when I replaced my power antennae mast, I had to disconnect the entire motor assembly and remove it from the car to get the frozen/rusted mast out.

If you pull the trunk lining back to expose the motor, you will see that the keyless unit is mounted on the passenger side panel and has two plugs -- one of which goes up towards the hole where the antennae mast exits. If that rubber grommet nut that holds the antennae to the quarter panel is not tight, it may be allowing water to leak and follow the wire to the keyless unit -- shorting out that side. I will be checking that as well, but the fact that the key fob locks and unlocks the doors makes me think the unit is fine.

I will post what I find -- I am moving in two days, so that will take priority until the wknd. Car is safe in the garage for now.

P.s. if anyone has removed their trunk lock assembly, I would appreciate a response back to advise me of anything I need to look out for and/or advice that will make its removal easier. Thanks!!

 

after my car got stolen it was time to get a new trunk and i had to macth all the wires that they thiefs cut.....anyways i got all the lights to work and now the alarm would sometimes work......now i am like wtf .......it took me about a month to figure it out.......
this is some symptoms u might expierence with the alarm just triggering
1) ur cold starts are harder because something has been draining the battery (i'll explain later)
2) alarm would sometime work.
3) alarm may just be trigger on

so this is how i solve the problem....i left the trunk open and i triggered the trunk lock to lock and saw the light was still on in the trunk...(this explains my hard starts....draining of the battery overnight) now, because i didn't secure all the wires that were cut...i started to shake the wires and saw the light came off and the alarm red led became solid......problem fixed, it was a open wire toughing another open wire.....

so if u have that problem it is lock mechanism, not so much electrical ......this is how u figure it out....first open the trunk, now lock all the doors in the car....then take ur key (while the trunk is still open) and slide is so that the trunk mechanism can activate keep playing with the lock .....now look at the led on the dash ....if still blinking...and the light is on in the trunk it is ur lock, if not it is fixed

 

Hi Randy -- thank you for your response. I have couple of questions about your info. When you say that you left the trunk lid open and jiggled the wires until the trunk light went off, are you saying that your trunk light is not located on the passenger side trunk hinge? If it is and you had the trunk open, then how did you get the light to go out? I will definitely look into the dash LED light to see whether it is blinking or solid when I test the system.

When you say that if the trunk light goes out then its the lock, not electrical, according to the guy at everythingnissan.com, he shows there being an electrical "switch" that actually goes around the entire lock cylinder and it activated whenever the lock is turned. So, even though my trunk light is working properly and not draining my battery, I could still have a bad "lock" switch. A simple way to check (which I recently thought of) is to simply go to the rear seat and open the pass-through door that enters the trunk. If the light is on when the lid is closed, then there is a problem with that switch. If it's dark, then I have another issue to diagnose.

BTW, when you had problems with your alarm, did you happen to notice whether the parking lights flashed on properly?? (twice for armed, once for disarmed) I disconnected my alarm by pulling the fuse and when I pressed the keyless to lock the door, they locked fine and lights flashed, but when I went to unlock them, the doors all unloced and the interior light went on, but the parking lights didn't flash at all.

Thank you for your info, I will be checking my car closer to the wknd after my move. Sorry to hear about the theives wrecking your trunk!!!

 

Ok, now I'm confused. I looked at several posts on NICO and came across a schematic of the factory security system and all the vehicle sensors/switches. On the trunk diagram, it only shows two switches: the trunk lock and interior lamp. Now, according to THAT diagram, the lamp switch is on the middle latch assembly, not on the passenger trunk hinge like I was told. I guess it's possible that that switch could be shorting out if water got into the trunk lid and made its way to the lowest area of the lid. The post didn't help with parking lights problem or car horn going on at random. I guess some genius wired all of these together, so that when the trunk light malfunctions, the horn will blast on. Go figure.

The more I research this, the more I dislike electrical shyte. Anyway, have to start moving tomorrow bright and early. Will hopefuly have an answer this wknd. Please post any suggestions until then.

Thanks!!

 

Download the F S M from
www dot phatg20 dot net

It will have complete schematics. I didn't even know the trunk latch affected the alarm... not sure how to test that either... I'll take at look at the schematics myself tonight.

 

** UPDATE **

Ok, here is the latest. I pulled the trunk lid guts out piece by piece and cleaned the connectors and greased the internal components. I discovered that the the four spoiler studs and nuts had hard water stains on them - no rust, but traces of water nonetheless. I also saw some corrosion on the trunk latch switch connectors. I went ahead and unplugged each connection one at a time and tried arming and disarming the system. then, I tried just the keyless with the alarm fuse pulled. Still, no parking lights blinkwhen disarming the system. I even see the dash light illuminate a solid red led when the system is armed, but after approximately 15 secs, it starts blinking. From what I've researched, a blinking dash light indicates a breach. I then, traced the two keyless entry unit leads and decided to check the ground. Well, that entails pulling out the entire back seat because the ground stops on the passenger rear pillar near one of the defroster connections. I checked that to make sure it was tight, traced the wire back to the metal opening in the body to see if the wire was cut/cracked and grounding on the metal. Looked good to me, so I reinstalled everything.

Next, I pulled the antennae motor out and realized that the upper keyless unit wire is attached to the antennae cable. When I pulled out the motor, I could see that the foam gasket around the upper part of the mast was torn and that could be allowing water to enter the opening in the quater panel. I know the next part of this may seem far fetched, but here goes. I think that water somehow got in around the antennae mast opening, leaked along the upper part of the motor, ran along the upper keyless wire (which was taped to the antennae cable) and shorted out the keyless unit. That is the only thing I can think of at this point.

Another weird thing that happened is that when I pulled the alarm fuse before finally parking the car today and waiting for the parts, the red led security dash light went from solid red to blinking after 15 secs. How can this be when I removed the fuse? Is my car possessed now?!?!?! The last time I pulled the fuse, I didn't get any dash security light. I honestly don't know WTF is going on, but would like to solve this and move on to the other mantenance I had planned to do.

I have purchased a keyless unit and trunk latch switch from a 98 GLE parts car, so I will install them, reprogram my keyless and hope for the best. I know a lot of members have viewed this thread, but I've only received a couple of suggestions. I can't believe I'm the only 4th gen owner who has experienced this.

I will keep you posted and any electronic gurus feel free to chime in!!!

Thanks,

Ted, Chicago

 

Alright fellow members, here is the latest.......

To keep from devulging anymore alarm information to any would-be thieves (shame on you!!) I will keep my update brief and hopefully the info in this post will help out a member and save their sanity and hair.

I tried installing the replacement trunk latch and switch as a unit because the actual switch is about 1" x 1/4" in measurement and is riveted to the latch assembly. Good luck getting a good switch off without destroying it and then even better luck attaching it to your existing latch. The 98 GLE parts car latch did not fit my 98 SE, because the actuator release lever is too small to be triggered by the trunk release arm in the base of the trunk. I think that Nissan makes a different sized switch depending on when your car was made. I also installed the replacement keyless unit and tried to arm the system and it worked the same as my old unit, so I reinstalled my old parts after cleaning the connectors (latch switch and keyless box unit).

As you may know, whenever you lock and unlock your doors using the remote, you can hear an audible click, click, from the relay in the base of the trunk, so I figured if I am hearing it click when the system is armed, but not when it is disarmed, the relay must be bad on one circuit, right? So, I purchased a new one form the dealer and installed it, but still no flashing parking lights when I disarm the car.

I figured I would take a chance and simply arm the system and then park the car for a few days and see if the alarm mysteriously went off. I asked my neighbor, who works from home, and it never went off by itself and hasn't gone off unexpectly for about three weeks now. I ended up sealing up the antennae mast holel. Then, I went to pull the spoiler off to seal up the holes - broke the side spoiler clips off and had to order them. Got the parts and then used black rtv to seal up the holes.

So far, no leaks and no crazy alarm going off. If any member has any specific questions, please PM me and hopefully I can provide an answer or at least a starting point in your diagnosis. Remember, the dealer charges $110.00 minimum just to check your factory system and a local alarm shop won't even look at it because it is a factory system.

BTW, I still have a working trunk latch w/ switch, keyless entry unit box and a matching(already programmed) remote fob and trunk release relay for sale if anyone is having problems with their factory system. PM me if you are interested.

Ted, Chicago

 

Don't know if your still an active member, but I'm having the same issue that you had with the alarm. I bout my car used, and I believe that it is a 98 SE. Had the same issue with the trunk latch. Was pretty much destroyed but I replaced it with another latch from the junkyard. Doesn't seem to unlatch like the oem latch, but my trunk light comes on. My alarm never worked but the kill switch for the ignition activates if I don't unlock the doors with the key or the keyless fob. I noticed a second horn under the hood on the passenger side of the car that doesn't work. It seems to be a flemsy wire connected to power. I understand that the horn is grounded and I ran a wire straight from power to the horn and it worked. My lights don't flash when i disarm the system either. I am vehicle literate but just getting started. Would like some input and what steps I should take to get this resolved.

Thanx in Advance

 

I disconnected the security fuse and got a real alarm. That solved my problem.

 

Yea thanx for NOT helping. Really could use a hand.

 

I got a keyless remote for my car from the junkyard and programed it to work in my car, car alarm never worked but lights flash when locking doors/unlocking, and the panic button works, Does anyone know how I can possibly get the alarm to work, when i lock doors manually or with the remote all the security button does is flash. SOmetimes my p assenger side door will not fully lock with the remote or with me locking all doors from driver side window switch, but I dont think that has anything to do with it.