Today, I had installed on my brand new 2003 Toyota Echo (1,000km) an Orbit remote car starter and an ignition kill switch at Lebeau (in Montreal). I drove the car home.
Later that night, I decided to try the car starter. It worked.
When I got into the car, I noticed that it sounded a bit different than the car normally sounds when the engine is on. It sounded “tinny”.
They told us that when you insert the key after an automatic car start, you don’t need to worry about the kill switch. So, I inserted the key and drove away.
When I arrived at my destination a few miles away, I put the car in Park – but as I did this, the engine starter came on – even though the engine was already running.
I took out the key, but the engine wouldn’t stop. I tried entering the key and pulling it out several times. I even tired to press the button that disengages the kill switch. Nothing worked. The engine remained running.
After about five minutes, the battery light flashed on the dashboard and then the engine got quieter until it finally stopped. At or around this point, smoke started coming from the engine.
The car is now parked in a parking lot overnight. I will have it towed to Toyota and ask them to have a look. But in the mean time, based on my description, can anyone speculate what happend? It’s pretty clear that the installer of the starter and kill switch messed up in a big way. But how? And what kind of damage do you think this did to my engine?
Sounds like a miswire in the remote start circuitry.
Starter motors are heavy duty, but are only meant for intermittant use, e.g. if the car won’t start-give the starter a break before you have two problems to fix.
There are a few cars that have had this problem, you were fortunate that the entire car didn’t go up in smoke, as others have.
Peugeot had a problem that led to thousands of cars being recalled, I believe that was down to water getting into an electronic module.
I sincerely hope that by installing this remote car stater you have not invalidated the warranty, I suspect strongly that the installer is the one who will be liable, but it is finding the proof that will be the hard part.
The warranty on the car’s starter system is toast at this point.There is no question about this. All car warranties exlude damage caused by modifications to the electrical system.
Now I have never seen this particular problem (Living in LA we don’t install many remote starters) But baed on the OP here is what I would expect to need to be replaced.
[ul]
[li]Battery[/li][li]Starter[/li][li]Ring gear (located on flywheel/ flexplate) probably replaced as a unit with the flywheel/flexplate[/li][li]Car wiring harness where said Mickey Mouse unit was cut in and installed[/li][li]Battery cable(s) may also be damaged[/li][/ul]
As a rough guess I would expect this to cost no less than $1000 US, possibly as much as $2000.
Needless to say, Kansas Man has a dandy claim agaist the shop that installed, and the company that made this piece of crap.
Your auto insurance may also cover under comprehensive. YMMV.
Oh and people, aftermarket electrical accessories fuck up lot of things on cars. I avoid them like the plague.
Depends on the product and the installer. Unfortuantely, a lot of aftermarket stuff (stereos, alarms, starters, etc) are installed by people who couldn’t hold down a burger-flipping job. In any large city there’s probably at least one car-stereo shop that will do excellent installation work, and won’t deal with cheap junk. If you are going to have accessories installed, its worth the time and money to track down and use such a shop.