The 1990 MX5/Miata I bought last week came with a Viper 700ESP the previous owner had gotten installed. I have an owners manual, and I've located and read the installation guide thanks to this site. And I've also searched the web but haven't found an answer to these curiosities:
1. (minor) When the alarm is triggered, the siren doesn't actually sound. Lights flash and starting is disabled, but that's it. I suspect a faulty siren, because I can't see a programmable mode for "no sound". Yet I CAN get the siren to sound when switching to test mode using the siren key. Interestingly, there are no arm/disarm chirps either (but that's a programmable mode so I expect it's off).
On the whole, the above isn't a biggie, because a noisy alarm is more nuisance than protection anyway.
But the next one is puzzling, and has me at least a little worried about my battery:
2. After I closed the hood today (had just been checking the chassis number), I heard a faint ticking noise coming from the siren unit. It continued regardless of whether I armed or disarmed using the remote, or started the engine. It only stopped when I used the siren key to turn the siren off. But it resumed as soon as I turned the siren back on.
It took more than an hour before the ticking stopped of its own accord. I *suspect* it was set off by the shock sensor. I don't recall hearing it any time before today.
While the ticking was going on, everything still worked as normal -- remote arm, disarm, engine start (or fail to start) etc.
Has anyone encountered this ticking before? If my siren is faulty, could it be the sound of the siren (failing to) go off?
The latter is relevant because of curious fact number 3:
3. While the ticking was happening, I gently pushed and prodded at the siren unit. Suddenly, the siren was sounding! Remote disarm etc. did NOTHING to stop it, even though I could hear the door locks doing. The only thing that fixed it was the siren key (off, then back on -- faint ticking resumed).
What on earth is going on here?
I suppose I shouldn't worry, since I don't care overmuch about (1), and (2) isn't a big deal SO LONG as it is self limiting, i.e. stopping before my battery suffers too much. But it sure doesn't feel right.
Any clues or further investigations to suggest?
Notes:
a) There's no valet switch I can find, so I can't try reprogramming things, e.g. the arm/disarm chirps, just to see what happens.
b) Possible factor: yesterday I charged the battery in situ, without prior disconnection. I can't see how it would lead to anything, but I thought I'd mention it. Only issue (3) is novel since then, and it may well have been there, unnoticed, all along.
c) When I first heard the ticking, the status LED was flashing 2x, which clued me in to the shock sensor. I notice now (second experiment, hours later), that the ticking is happening and the LED is flashing 3x (door switch sensor). Just data, no idea if it's relevant at all.