To my neighbor with the rabidly over-sensitive car alarm:
You must be new to the area, because it’s only been happening for a few weeks. I’ll bet you’re paying a ridiculously high rent because this area has suddenly become fashionable. I would bet dollars to doughnuts that you’re from out-of-state.
Obviously the only thing you know about this area is what you’ve seen on the nightly news back in your sleepy little hometown. I’ll bet your family worries about you, living here in this den of iniquity. Because your stupid car alarm, which is the el-cheapo kind that only honks your tinny little subcompact car horn, has gone off at least five separate times this morning, each for a period of several minutes. Seriously, there has not even been a big truck rolling by, or a gaggle of playful children, or any of the other things that sometimes trigger car alarms.
Everyone from out of town seems to worry about their precious cars getting stolen, in this neighborhood full of grandmas and cats and families walking their children to school. You know, if you looked at an actual crime map, you would find that there are not a lot of car thefts around here.
And why does it take you so long to turn the f****r off? It was going for the 5th time when I started writing this, and it is going for the 6th time now. (I’m a slow typist.) Each time it has taken you two or three minutes of “BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!” to stop it.
If someone* were *ever stealing your car, they would be smooth gone before you even noticed.
Honk honk honk car alarms are the appendix of security technology - no one is quite sure what good it does*, but every clueless rube seems to have one for no apparent reason.
I live sort of in the country now (it’s 3 minutes to the grocery store, but I am surrounded by a few acres of my own trees, and there’s a cotton field next door,) after a couple of decades of urban and suburban living. I am happy to report that the neighbor kid with the 4×4 truck is 1000% less annoying than neighbors with car alarms.
About 5 1/2 years ago, I bought a new car. It’s a Honda Fit, so it’s hardly the most expensive thing in the neighborhood. But I was very insistent with the dealership that I did not want a car alarm with it. They seemed surprised by this. And apparently the car alarms are built in, because they said they’re remove a chip to disable the alarm system.
So at least when I hear a car alarm going off in the middle of the afternoon or at night, at least I know it’s not my car.
I think the states should mandate that car alarms alert the car owner via text message or smartphone app. There’s no reason anyone else needs to hear that a car alarm was activated.
I’m very interested in knowing if there was any warranty or insurance issues due to your request. Is something like that which is built into the car considered to be a warranty violation if you ask the dealership to remove it? Because I’m soon to be in the market for a car and there is one thing I want the dealer to disable for me before I consider buying it. Most new cars will beep or talk if you aren’t wearing your seatbelt. I want that sound gone. I don’t give a shit about my seatbelt, sometimes I’ll wear it, sometimes I won’t. Will a dealership disable that for me on request?
I don’t know the answer to your question but I suspect what you want falls under mandatory safety equipment and not optional equipment. My guess is that the dealer will not be able to fulfill your request and in fact there may be no easy way for them to do so.
It’s not safety equipment at all and certainly not mandatory. They may not be able to do anything about it. This could set up a mess of civil litigation in a community that has noise laws. It is flat out idiotic not to have an alarm system that can’t be disabled with a switch when the key is in.
TriPolar, I believe Dewey Finn was referring to defeating the seatbelt warning (audible to the occupants), NOT to the theft alarm (audible to the neighbors).
Right. Some verion of the horn-honk alarm system is now OEM gear in virtually all but the cheapest models.
However whether a cheapo or the one on the Cadillac Beast, if it goes off a half dozen times before lunch for no reason it is malfunctioning. The neighbor needs to fix it. Heck, these days the “traditional” three-tone alarm is no longer the standard soundtrack of night in the city.
Insurance, possibly, depending on company and jurisdiction – insurers offer a better rate if a vehicle is equipped with an alarm vs. if it isn’t. Warranty maybe if the alarm system is intrinsecally tied in with any other important component e.g. the power locks but if it can be silenced without affecting anything else it should not be a problem.
The seatbelt-alert bell, however, may considered part of the overall restraint system like **Dewey Finn **stated and the carmaker and dealer could then be mandated to refuse to disable it – you may do so yourself, of course, if you can or if you know a private tech who knows how, I mean it’s your face through the windshield, not mine.
My car has a “finder horn” which is activated by the red button on the remote. I think it is there so that if yow parked in a vast mall lot amongst thousands of other vehicles that are similar to yours and have a hard time locating it, you can keep trying to make it shout at you. It may be possible that you are hearing this being triggered by a fiendish toddler, a defect in the remote, or a satanic microwave.
My husband’s car has a finder horn, and it started going off randomly one day. We discovered it was happening because one of the fobs needed a new battery. We changed both for good measure. It took the same kind as the glucometer I used at the time, so we had some in the house.
Little OT, but interesting, once while walking the dogs, DH and I found some keys. They had a finder horn, so while we were walking, we kept trying it, and we found the car they matched. So we left them on the front seat with the door unlocked. When we were a couple of blocks away, we saw some people run up to the car looking kind of frantic, and then relieved when the door opened. I don’t think they were car thieves, because they weren’t going along trying doors, looking for one that opened.
I’ve said before that I fail to see the point in car alarms. A great many people don’t respond to them for quite a while.
The reason I don’t want one, however (other than the fact that I drive a 20 year old car. Yeah, it’s in decent shape, and it’s a convertible, and a BMW. But it’s still 20 years old, and not worth much to a chop shop), is simple:
If the alarm goes off, am I supposed to run out there and get my car stolen AND my ass kicked? No thanks.
Same thing happened here a few weeks ago. Turned out that a new neighbor recently bought a used car with a faulty alarm. Neighbor fixed the alarm and posted an apology on the bulletin board.
Well, you may be right,** Skywatcher** and eschereal, but after the sixth time in half so many hours, I reserve the right to both bitch and rant. :mad:
Frankly, the other noises my neighbors make are more annoying than car alarms. I have been wanting to learn Scottish Pipes in the back yard, just to contribute to the cacophony that is this place.
What I could see being useful would be a system where your car texts you (And you could set that text to always get through and have a special ringer), or maybe even has an app on your phone that would sound an alarm. That way you’d know it was your car.
And, of course, they definitely need variable settings for sensitivity. And maybe even different alarms/text messages for different levels.
We’ve got Saw Guy in our neighborhood. Suddenly you’ll hear a loud buzzsaw going off at all hours of the morning and night, and I have yet to find a project being worked on anywhere near me. Yet, this has been going for years. Hopefully just a woodworker.
We also have Loud Motorcycle Guy. He has decided to use our neighborhood as his test track for his muffler-free bobo Harley, rather than just take it to low-residential road that passes by two blocks away.
Similar to Car Alarm Guy, speaking of noises that keep going off over and over and over again and the owner of the noise ignoring them, theres Cell Phone Vibrate Guy.
Everyone turns their cell phone ringers off for the meeting, including this guy, except he leaves it face down on the conference table, where it vibrates, twice as loud because its face down on a wooden table, every 15 minutes when he gets a call, vibrating for 20 seconds a shot because he set his ringer to last as long as possible.
Except he doesn’t pick up the phone to stop it because after all, the ringer is off, so he just lets it vibrate, over and over and over again, completely oblivious to the fact everyone else in the room wants to pick it up and throw it against the wall.
OR, better yet is when Cell Phone Vibrate Guy picks the phone up to see who is calling, then puts it back on the table so it can keep vibrating. :mad:
Could be someone like me. We had (past tense) neighbors who insisted on loud partying until 2-3am on weeknights. I’m a very early riser, and my policy in these situations is fence repair near their windows. I use both a portable generator and skillsaw extensively. Adding klieg lights allows me to begin as early as 5:30. The repairs continue until the point is made.
FWIW: We have reached equilibrium now. Weeknights are peaceful, and I no longer need the skillsaw.
I just wish my next-door neighbor would play air bass for hours on end, rather than the electric bass plugged into a maxed-out amp. Maybe someday he will get good at it.
