I have a 95 GLE. I do have a factory alarm. Is this alarm reliable enough to keep away normal theives?

 

If you are in an area that you must worry constantly about this I would say the factory is unreliable. It will only go off if someone pulls up on the drivers side door as far as I know, but hey, the blinking red light in there showing it is armed may keep kids away.

 

Any car can be stolen.

Here's a funny story for you though. A week after I got my max, the previous owner didn't tell me I had a factory alarm, nor did the guy who installed my remote start alarm. My brother in law borrowed my car, and he set both alarms. I disengaged the remote start, and tried to turn on my car. Needless to say, I had a good half hour of sirens before I figured out why I couldn't start my car.

 

my nieghbor has a 95 max gle with a aftermarket alarm and the factory alarm on it. He didnt put the aftermarket alarm one night (the factory alarm was on) and someone broke his passanger side window and tried to steal his stereo. they didnt get anything but broke up his dash pretty bad. So the factory alarm system isnt very dependable. I dont even think it goes off it the car is started with it on. I will check tonight. But if someone breaks your window and doesnt open the doors they could be long gone before it goes off.

 

The factory alarm is basically useless. A good thing is that it takes a few bucks off of your insurance

Get an aftermarket one if you're worried. Get an alarm with keyless entry and car starter and LCD screen on the remote. Something like this: http://www.alarms.com/security/viper..._responder.asp (look at the LCD display at the bottom of the page)

 

as far as i know the factory alarm only goes off if you try to open the door from the inside after locking it with the remote... so its pretty useless

 

while you made this thread, i just stole your car

 

I think I read in the owners manual that the factory alarm is also set off if someone tries to stick a different key in the keyhole. Curious about it, I tried a few different keys to see if this actually worked, but most of them didn't get too far into the keyhole. I tried my friends Pathfinder key and that didn't get too far in either.

I wonder if its true?

 

no.
none really are.

imo the best are there super small sirens you can put into your car. they are so loud you can't be in the car without a massive headache in seconds and everyone will hear and stare at it driving around which is claimed to be impossible. ran off a seperate battery hidden away somewher clever.
you could wire it up to go off from a number of neat places...when say when the battery gets disconnected(make a switch in your trunk to turn off the alarm) window breaks, when stock alarm sets it off. wireing is lots of fun.

i plan on getting a few...