Blaze9

Hey all,

Holy crap I just got back inside after disconnecting my battery. It's been raining all day and just a few minutes ago my car's alarm started going off. This has never happened before (100k miles) so it was quite confusing. I tried unlocking the door, no dice. I tried locking, opening, etc etc but it just wouldn't shut up. I got into the car and it was open, I didn't hear the unlock sound. I locked using the door button and unlocked and still nothing. I then went outside and closed the door and the alarm finally stopped. The only door I touched was the drivers door. Didn't open/close any other. I did notice that the sunroof was slightly slightly open when I got to the car. I am 100% sure that It was closed when I locked the car this afternoon, because I knew of the upcoming rain and did close it. I also checked while raining to make sure and it was 100% closed. It was abut 2-3 inches open when the alarm started going off, and thankfully the rain was gone by then only a bit of residual drops of water from the overhead tree. I've also came to my car the other night with the windows/sunroof about 50% open, my brother told me when he got home that my car's windows were open. I was home for about 1-2 hours since I parked and left the car locked.

Some quite weird bugs. I'm not sure at all what could be happening. I thought the windows was just me having my keys in my pocket and I held the unlock button by mistake, but I highly doubt that...

So overview of symptoms:

1. Alarm goes off, couldn't turn it off w/ remote (both remotes).
2. Alarm didn't turn off when car was started and door was open.
3. Alarm turned off when car was on and door closed.
4. Alarm turns back on when car is on and door is opened.
5. sunroof was slightly ajar, about 2-3 inches
6. previously (2 days ago) sunroof/windows were ajar about 40-50% of the way.

Battery is a yellow top which I put on a battery tender about once every 3 months since I don't drive the car too much. There are a few electrical mods (HID fogs, direct wired to battery dash cam, LED switchback turn signals without resistor) but nothing new, and everything I've done has been driven over 80k miles. Newest mod was the Ktune at about 100k, right now I'm at 105k. Didn't notice any bugs when I flashed the FW though I can try to revert back to stock but is the ECU connected to the security system?

I have read up on this and many people suggest getting a new door switch, but that wouldn't explain the open sunroof/windows. Another suggestion on this forums for the earlier 3G TL was to replace the battery both car and remote. Car battery is great condition, it's still pretty new less than 20k miles on it, and I haven't had any low voltage MID errors at all. The dealer did a power usage firmware upgrade at around 50k and replaced the battery with an OEM one but that died out at around 90k so I replaced w/ the optima. Other than that, there have never been many power problems with this car... Someone else said that there might be a new leak somewhere causing a wire short because of the rain? Maybe, but where would I look for this... I really don't want to drop ~200+ dollars for diagnosis at a dealer.

Any help would be highly highly appreciated!! Right now i just disconnected the battery and put it on the tender incase the battery amperage went down and that caused some issues, but MID was fine and my dash cam was recording. (It's connected to a 12v switch so turns off if voltage drops below).

Thank you so much guys!

Blaze9

Oh my. I just checked the car today, opened up the fuse box area. And there's a good amount of water near my obdii port opening on the inside of the cover... How screwed am I guys? I'm kinda freaking out here. Please chime in!!

Blaze9

I can't edit the previous post but here's an update. I opened up the passenger side fuse box area to make sure there was no water. There wasn't. I checked the driver side box and the only water I see right now is on the OBDII port's outline on the pannel, not even on/around the actual port. The fusebox looks pretty dry, nothing extra there. The other area around there looks dry too, nothing visibly wet... I'm not sure what's up or what could have happened.

I was driving after I turned the car on and left it on for about 30 minutes earlier this morning. It was perfectly fine no issues. I drove around for about 5 minutes and then the horn started blaring, didn't stop at all, and the hazzard lights flashed (both turn signals at once) for as long as the horn was on .I moved the car over, turned it off, and the horn stopped and I restarted the car. It was okay and now I'm home with the fuse area disassembled trying to see if there is any water around the fuse box. Which I don't see right now.. sigh. How could the water have gotten in there? I am 100% sure the windows and sunroof was closed. 100% sure... I do see some water marks where the A pillar starts and meets the roof (where the "SRS airbags" logo is, that plastic piece meeting the head liner). So it 100% looks like water got down into the A pillar.. Though I'm not sure how!!! I checked the lining of my sunroof and there are no cracks, at least visible to me...


Quick edit : there's actually rust on the obdii bracket... The metal one holding the port in place. Also can see rust in the bracket holing the hood release as well... Shit.

Thanks yall.

Blaze9

Work log of what I have done so far:

• Removed the Passenger/Driver drain tubes from the bottom of the car (Manual page 20-75). I blew compressed air (90psi) from the bottom to the top, to see if there were any leaves or something stuck. Nothing. Blew air from top to bottom as well, it looks like it came out clean, but something might have flown past me without me knowing. I did not do the rear ones because I park my car facing down a steep incline, and my trunk is completely packed right now and I haven't had time to unload it. This will be for later this week.
• Removed dashboard trim, switch panel and dashboard undercover (pages 20-116 to 118) and removed kick panel (20-81). This gave me good access to the fusebox (22-81). I blew air from top to bottom to see if there was any residual water. I did not find any. This is where I noticed what looks like rust from previous post on the OBDII port bracket. Did not notice any additional water at all,
• Removed battery from my remotes, right now using them as oldstyle remotes, keys and inserting fob to turn on the car. Replacement batteries are coming in Monday.
• Checked the relay box for the Horn (space 10) and Hazzard (space 9) relays. Under hood. box was 100% dry and dusty inside, no presense of any water. Checked relays, nothing looked off or smelled off. Do not have a relay checker to actually check for these two but will get a multimeter.
• Put my battery back on the battery tender for charging. It's undergoing charging right now, was below 80% capacity according to the tender. Will let this go over night and sleep near the front of the house in case it rains overnight or in case the alarm goes off again.
• Covering the car w/ a tarp, it's supposed to rain overnight. Extra protection. -.-

Man, I really really hope this isn't a huge expensive problem. I had dreams of running this car down to the ground before getting rid of her. =/

Blaze9

Alright so work log update:

I sat in the car for about 20 minutes in extremly heavy rain. like super heavy rain. Got drenched getting to my car. Sat inside and waited to see if I could see any water in the A pillars. It doesn't look like there was anything there. Last time this happened the rain wasn't as heavy and didn't go on for as long. I opened up the sunroof after and saw that there was some water in that area where the drain holes are, but not soaked.

Conclusion so far:

What I think happened is my battery on the FOB was super low, and i've been reading that low batteries don't always give a "full" code to the car to do the task which was asked. I'm assuming, totally unscientific/backed by knowledge of the keyfob workings, that the "unlock and hold" code was being sent when I unlocked the car, but I didn't actually send it. This caused the sunroof to open slightly and caused a good amount of rain to get into the A pillar and work its way down. The water might have caused this glitch.

I replaced the batteries on my FOB and so far the past weekend it's been good.. We'll see if it continues.