I am getting ready to move my navigation and sound system from my old car to the Audi this spring and I want an aftermarket alarm. I want one with the LCD screen that tells you someone’s jacking around your car. Keyless/Remote Start/ETC. anyone got any recommendations? Anyone using a similar one and what did you pay? Oh and was it hard to remove the stock A4 alarm system?

Also can you imagine hooking it up to this I mean I’m no car thief , but train horns make my bones rattle around. I can’t imagine any thief hanging around with those blasting.

 

My car came with an aftermarket Prestige remotestart/alarm/keyless, system. It seems to work pretty good. But I hear that getting an aftermarket system to work with the stock one can be a real bitch.

 

I tried to get a command start before winter hit...5 out of 6 places that I went to just laughed at me and said "oh an audi, nope can't do it." and the last place said "oh an audi, well, no one wants to do it, but for $1200 well put in a low end starter for you IF you really want us to." freekin slackers....

 

alias747 I was afraid somone would say it was gonna be a PITA, I guess I cant just rip the brain out of the stock system and rewire everything then huh? But since yours is working, it must be possible somehow.

hahahah, MissionCtrl, where was that? best buy? When I was 17 I brought my 300zx there for a head unit and they said the same crap... "oh a bose sound system, pay us triple or get out of here". Went home and it only took like 45 minutes DIY, to this day I STILL dunno what they were bitching about.

I like this alarm it actually takes a photo of the would be thief, add train horns and no ones gonna try any ****.

 

lol that would be awesome!

 

To tell you the truth pre 99 a4's aren't that bad. I'm an installer at a shop and its pretty straight forward...might need to find some wires because the wiring color is incorrect. Newer Audi's are a little more difficult, but should be finished within a days work. Some brands to look for are Viper, Clifford, Compustar, Code Alarm?....some on top of my head. The Compustar Pro SS has the best range but isn't out yet (I will be getting this when it comes out), otherwise Viper/Clifford 2ways are about the same. I paid really cheap for my Viper 791XV (Employee deal =D)

Remote start on manuals require a little bit more work (bypass clutch, parking brake)...and could potentially be expensive if you leave it in first and remote start it.

You don't HAVE TO remove the factory alarm. Since it arms with Lock and Disarms with unlock...you can just integrate it. I kept mine in and can utilize factory proximity and roll up all windows with my Viper remote.

Remember, if a thief sees a quick ******....theres no way of protecting it. Take off radio's faceplate, cd's stashed out of sight, etc. If your car is 1000 feet away or down 3 floors and your pager goes off....I hope you have your shoes on otherwise they're probably gone.

 

Thanks for the input, I have never installed an alarm before and this will be my first. So how well does it work when you run both at the same time? Did you tap the new alarm modules brain into your existing alarms wires? Or did you rewire everything?

I decided to go with this unit. Company was started by one of the original founders of Compustar so it should be good. And it just looks excellent.

My car is parked right by my bedroom window, so if my pager goes off the thief better be Sonic the f'n Hedgehog so he can outrun my .40S/W round.

 

I live in downtown Baltimore and my roomates have a porsche and a scion. The dummies left their ipods in their cars and both got broken into on the same night at like 8pm. Both had alarms and were parked right in front of our townhouse. Honestly, I think it was some little 14 year olds because of the middle school next to our house, but they can bash the window and grab whatever they want really quickly. True, none of us heard the alarms so the pager one might have been a good idea, along with security cameras out front. At least I am smart enough to take everything of any value out of my car to avoid this situation. Sad part is the scion got broken into again 2 weeks later...

Now the train horn that is a damn good idea. There has to be a way to get an electric charge going through the car when the alarm is active.

 

The Easycar has a pretty low frequency. If I understand it correctly the lower frequency has less range (correct me if I'm wrong, cheaper compustar 1-ways are 433mhz compared to their 2-way at 900mhz).

Using an aftermarket alarm with the factory does no harm. Basically you are sharing the trigger wires, hood pin, trunk pin. And yes, you tap into wires that are there (No point in rewiring your whole car...). One thing you should put in is a proximity sensor since the factory prox will only trigger the factory alarm (the horn in the back, I'm trying to figure out how to utilize the factory prox since it's better IMO, less falses).

If you install it yourself, I would suggest taking apart the center console and mounting it behind the climate controls or above the glove box. I'll try to guide you along the install but it might take more than a day since this is your first.

 

i keep a rabies infested wolf in my car...seems to keep the bad guys away