Alarm warning light on Drivers door

[mkg988]

Can anyone help?

I have an E230, with the infrared alarm system. When armed a red light flashes on the rear view mirror and the drivers door handle. I have noticed this weekend that the one on the door handle has stopped flashing, although the rear view mirror is still working and the alarm still works.

So I assume that there is some kind of bulb in the door handle, although I would have thought an LED would have been better.

Can any one tell me how to change this bulb, how to get the door apart etc.......

Thanks for any help,
                               Martin

 

[fuzzer]

I had this alarm system on an earlier car and my mirror lights went out . I had to get a replacement mirror at mercedes expence but the point of this is .. I was told that when there are no LED's left the alarm will stop to function ... i would seek advice on this from a Dealership..

 

[mkg988]

Should any one be interested I now know why the flashing lights are so important, and how to repair the door handle for 15 pence!

 

[fuzzer]

the alarm stops working , doesn't it ?

 

[Koolvin]

Quote: from mkg988 on 2:28 pm on May 22, 2002
Should any one be interested I now know why the flashing lights are so important, and how to repair the door handle for 15 pence!

do share.

 

[mkg988]

Yes, you're right. In the UK Merc's don't use their alarm system, they normally use a scorpion system. This merely uses the pulse of the light/led circuit to arm/disarm the alarm system. The Merc system doesn't flash the lights, they were never designed to be continually flashing, (meaning the red one). Would you believe that they actually use bulbs not LED's, so after a while the bulb blows, and when both blow there is no way to arm/disarm the alarm!

I was quoted £50+ by Mercs to replace the door handle unit, but assuming you can use a screw driver and a soldering iron, it should take about half an hour and the cost of a bulb!

Basically you have to pull the door rubber out from its channal, and using a torx driver remove the single screw holding the end piece of the door handle on.

Once removed you will see the plug connector which is sealed into a plastic holder. Carefully remove the silicon sealer around the top edge, then gently pull the plug out of the plastic holder, it clicks all round the edge, so be careful not to break the edges.

Once removed you'll see that its a very simple circuit board wth two micro bulbs on it. These are just 12V white bulbs, which cost about 15pence each.

I cut the old bulb off just below the glass of the bulb, so that I could solder the new bulb onto the old bulb wires, therefore not having to muck about with the circuit board.

Then just put it all back together. Easy, and nowhere near £50!

Hope this helps, if not email me and I'll produce a more detailed explanation.

 

[Koolvin]

My door handle light starts to continusly flash once the alarm is activated

I dont know what alrm you got maybee the previous owner messed it up?

My rear view mirror has lights on both sides and the continuesly flash once alrm is activated also!

 

[mkg988]

Yes, its an official alarm system, I have lights on both driver door handle and rear view mirror.

The Red light flashes continuously when the alarm is armed, the green light flashes during the disarm process.

The mirror lights are also used to denote battery warning for the remote key, and to show when the engine has been imobilised.

 

[Koolvin]

so whats all this about

'scorpian' and

'This merely uses the pulse of the light/led circuit to arm/disarm the alarm system. The Merc system doesn't flash the lights, they were never designed to be continually flashing, (meaning the red one).'

 

[mkg988]

Sorry, I seem to have confused you. Its very simple really.

When Mercs designed the car it was designed to use a Merc alarm, which used the lights on the mirror and door to show the status of the alarm, while it was actually going through the arming and disarming process.

In the UK they don't fit that alarm they use an OEM product produced, in the case of my particular car, by Scorpion. This doesn't connect in to the remote locking system in the same way as the originally design alarm. It is just connected to the warning lights circuit of the central locking system , so all it does is sense when the lock system pulses the alarm lights. When the lock system pulses the red light the scorpion alarm arms, it then sends a regular pulse to the red light to indicate that it is armed.
When the lock system pulses the green light the scorpion alarm disarms the alarm and stops pulsing the red light.

If the red light or green light circuits are 'broken' because all the bulbs have blown, the alarm doesn't receive any pulses, so won't arm/disarm.

Its very simple, you can check with a Merc dealer. Its a bodge on the existing system.

 

[Koolvin]

Martin,

Thanks for that info... I kind of understand now, so my car has a aftermarket alarm because the lights flash after being armed.

I think this makes sense because Steve (from NL) said he had never seen door handles flash like that after being armed and when we were fitting the Blinking door mirrors we noticed someone had already been at my cars wiring loom!!!!!

Why did they do this in the UK? why didnt they use the standard alarm?

Do you know if I can fit a Cloack to my alarm system? AS in please step away from the car kind of thing?

 

[mkg988]

I assume that the country regulations about alarms are different, things like how long the alarm sounds for without a break, maximum volume/pitch etc......

I'm not an alarm expert, so I don't know what you could fit. Based on the fact that it is an additional system added to the car, as long as you hook into that alarm system it should be okay.

 

[Matt Crooke]

Koolvin, my 190 has got the factory fitted Scorpion on it, although ive never had the remote, and my local stealership want rather too much to remove the system, re-code and supply 2 new remotes. So ive nevr bothered.

As for the cloak alarm, i cant see why you couldnt fit one, most alarm installers do the talking alarms, although ive always had visions of a stolen car speeding down the road, with the alarm crying "Help ive been stolen, somebody stop this nasty man!!!!!"

Also most Cat 1 alarms do have perimiter sensors, that let off a warning chirp if you stand too close, or a bird shits on the roof. Which brings me on to the best point, im not sure if the UK's Thatcham Catogories exist in other countries, but most factory fit alarms arent even a Cat 2, hence in other countries the merc standard alarm is acceptable, however in the UK to get any real benefit it needs to be a cat 1. hence its gonna be a lot cheaper for MB to approach an established alarm manufacturer to install into the cars, rather than MB having to redesign their alarm just for the UK market......

Thats what i reckon anyway...for what its worth lol!

 

[Shude]

...as a side note, I don't have any of those flashing lights etc on my w202 c class, the facelift models use an MB alarm system, which is set on the computer to be for a particular country.  I only know this because a while ago one of the US members of benzsport had his car's computer set to Norwegian so the alarm beeps as well as flashing the indicators when it's armed/disarmed, that doesn't happen to the US or UK models as standard.

 

[Koolvin]

Ok, I think i'm going to get jiggy with my alarm after work!

 

[Koolvin]

Ive just checked my Siren box, it has Merxedes benz Logos all over it... what does this all mean?

 

[mkg988]

What it means is that Mercs have stuck their stickers all over someone elses boxes so they can charge you more for it.

Mine are the same, I took it to a car alarm specialist when I first got the car, he tok it all apart, and inside the merc labeled boxes was a scorpion alarm!

 

[Koolvin]

Quote: from mkg988 on 8:52 am on May 24, 2002
What it means is that Mercs have stuck their stickers all over someone elses boxes so they can charge you more for it.

Mine are the same, I took it to a car alarm specialist when I first got the car, he tok it all apart, and inside the merc labeled boxes was a scorpion alarm!

I just checked all my cars documents, your right the keyfob is only a imobiliser and central locking unit, the siren and interioir sensors are add ons...

There is a seperate manual for the alarm and its printed in the UK whereas all the other centrol locking manuals are worldwide print....

I'm going to open my alarm box up in a few minutes cause I took a day off work

 

[Koolvin]

Martin,

Just spoke to Scorpian and they confirmed what you said the alarm works on the pulses of the lights and was designed for UK MB....

I am a little annoyed that I cannot add a 'cloak' around the car :/

going to have to rip the car apart to see where the interior sensors are pluged into, if I can find a control module I will bodge the scorpion bodge on the mercedes bodge system!!!

Thanks alot I have learnt alot!

 

[Koolvin]

Infact the scorpian alarm is a very basic unit ie.

that just monitors voltage drops (when someone opens a door)

interior sensors

and the red LED light is just hooked up to the car's door handle/mirror circuit.

The only special thing about this alarm is how it is armed and disarmed (when u use the mb key fob to open or lock doors)....

I am sure I can probably find another alarm unit on the market and replace the scorpian very easily indeed.

The alarm unit doesn't have a imboliser as mercedes have their own one (infra red) and the window closure is also part of the mb unit....

I now need to find a alarm that can be armed and disarmed using pulses so that I can replace the scorpian with a 'bad boy' system.