Very strange electrical gremlins

[Paulo.dicanio]

Last night my Chim starting behaving very strangely. It was parked outside my house, me and mrs dicanio sat on sofa watching (reluctantly I hasten to point out)Britains got talent. Suddenly the alarm goes off, I went to investigate as normally the alarm needs a bit of provocation to go off. Nothing is wrong with the car but I notice the stereo and the ignition are on even though I've taken the keys out. It started ok so I thought I would take it for a little spin and go get some petrol and hope the problem would rectify itself. 5 mins down the road to the local tescos, turned the car off and the ignition turned off. Marvellous problem solved I thought, but when I started the car up it wouldn't hold its revs just kept cutting out the whole way home. Made it home and parked up, I decided not to set the alarm just in case it played up but as I was walking back up the drive I heard the familiar clunk clunk of the doors locking and unlocking. The car was just permanently locking and unlocking itself. Ok then I think I better set the alarm, I press the key fob and WOOOOOOOWOOOOOOOWOOOOOOOO NEENAHNEEENSNEEENEAY HONKHONKHONK WOOOOOPWOOOOOOOOP the alarm goes off and its one those annoying Clifford ones that makes all sorts of loud noises. I try to turn the thing off but it wasn't having it. By now Im getting all embarressed while the car alarm is making a noise similar to that of "containment leak" alarm at a nuclear power plant.... Eventually it stops and the key fob finally decides it is going to let me open the car again. The car is open but everything else seems fine so I decide to quit while im ahead, I begin walking up the drive when I hear clunk clunk clunk clunk. It starting locking and unlocking again!!!!
I try setting the alarm once more and it went off again for abot five minutes before it eventually let me open it once again. Predictably it began locking and unlocking itself again.Bugger it I thought I will worry about it in the morning and left it happily clunking away to itself while I went back inside and contented myself by watching some of britains most deluded people make arses of themselves on national T.V
This morning everything appeaars to be normal, the car unlocks and locks fine, it now idles ok but occasionally goes a little bit lumpy.The alarm also seems to occasionally chirp to itself. Other then that everything is good.

About half an hour previous to all this happening I had given the car a fairly rigourous hosing as I parked under a tree in the day and it had taken the mother of all bird poo hammerings! (really browny yellow and gooey aswell) Is it likely I got something wet I shouldn't have done and that's what caused it to go crazy??
Anyone any thoughts?
Apologies for the essay
Cheers,
Paulo.

[spend]

You can always pull the ignition relay (the only black 70A one with bigger terms) which will narrow down your problems. Sounds like it was a cry of despair at an owner being subject to such telecrap to me tho

Dave

[nikman]

Bet you feel better for getting all that off your chest Paulo!! Almost 100% for sure you have soaked a bad connection somewhere and caused the problem which resolved when the area dried out. But the mystery is what got wet and how did that affect the running of the engine as well as the alarm and locking issues.

Most of the gubbins that affect the alarm and central locking are behind the left hand side of the dashboard and a couple of comoponents in the transmission tunnel just underneath the leather/vynil trim aft of the door opener. Unless you noticed water in the car (in the passenger footwell having dripped down from the dashboard??) the only other associated componment is the actual siren which is mounted in the nose on the left hand side usually - and usually mounted facing the "wrong" was so that it takes the full force of any water sprayed in the front!!

My suggestion would be EITHER forget about it and see if it happens again under different circumstances such as not after any water has been used.. OR have a word with Carl Baker at Car & Bike Instalations www.tvruk.tv He is top man for EVERYTHING connected with the lockling alarm and imoboliser systems used on our cars. I saw him just this week when he fitted a new siren for me and sorted our all my remote blippers. He really does seem to know more about these systems than anyone around.

Good luck Paulo - Oh and thanks for going into such graphic detail about the bird poo. Just what I needed to know after a lunch of the remainds of last night's curry take away!! Nick

[GreenV8S]

I would guess you have got water into the alarm / central locking. This can lead to weird behaviour short term and corrosion related problems long term.