Engine Kill Switch - Use with Caution!!

[watercat]

I also have the latest car alarm tech going. Its the only system people dont ignore when it goes off. But they no its not there old ride.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22_JNKflY6I

[comptiger5000]

^ That's hilarious. And honestly, it probably would be more effective. Nobody can really ignore that.

[brucepick]

Thread jack.

[old blue]

nice alarm..... i live in a gated community and work has a monitered gated parking lot

[j12piprius]

My mechanic insists that a kill switch is a bad idea, as it's bad for the starter and flywheel.

I've worn out a few ignition switches through the years by turning off the ignition at stoplights. One of the scariest times though was when the starter went out, the car revved up high and wouldn't turn off. Fortunately I was at a gas station at the time and they disconnected the battery. The diagnosis was that the teeth were stripped from the flywheel.

So, I was excited to install a kill switch to save gas, but it looks like that won't be happening.

[Piwoslaw]

It's happened again. Twice!
The first rerun was two weeks after our first incident. We went to my Grandma, the Wife was supposed to drive home, but after driving out of the driveway decided she doesn't feel too good, so she turned the engine off with the kill switch and got out, and the car locked itself. Damn. But since we still remembered what happened two weeks ago, and we were in front of Grandma's house, then I went to get some tools, got a stick inside to press the window button and - nothing! The window was frozen shut. The other windows too.
Thankfully, Grandma lives an hour's train ride from home, so 2.5h later I was back with the spare key.

So next time went to Grandma's I had the spare key with me. We stopped at a gas station, I turned the engine off with the key and removed it (I didn't use the kill switch this time), I got out and filled up. When I wanted to open the door it was locked, but I had the key in my hand (and spare in my pocket), so no problem. The Wife had been inside the whole time and said that she didn't lock the door.

This is weird, because earlier that day at Grandma's the car was left on the driveway for hours and it didn't lock itself. In fact, until now it has never locked itself while the key was not in the ignition. The family keeps repeating that my use of the kill switch may have done something with the ECU, maybe making it go into some kind of panic mode. Could this be the case?

[Daox]

I've had this happen a couple times to me too. Thankfully the Mrs has always been somewhere close enough to get me a key. I now carry a extra key in my wallet just in case since that is always on my person and can't be left in the car.

[Piwoslaw]

I tried a few things today and found out the following: When I stop and open the driver's door, that door opens, but none of the doors unlock, so none of them can be opened from the outside, including the driver's door once it is closed. Previously, all doors would unlock and stay unlocked when one of them was opened from the inside. My guess is that the central lock settings were changed, maybe when I disconnected the battery while the doors were locked? I'll have to find out how to reprogram it. Hopefully it'll turn out that it has nothing to do with my kill switch.

[vacationtime247]

Thanks. This thread just reminded me I need to order some auto jigglers and a lock snap gun. Takes to long trying to pick them. The pry the window method works, but you almost need 2 people to do it if you don't have professional equipment.
VT247