I just bought an 04 HEMI QC friday night. My question is how many people stayed with the dealership alarms. Mine quoted me 800 for it and I laughed. The truck already had it all wired up so they just unplugged the brain and kept the remotes. I was wondering if any other alarms will plug into the harness, or what type of alarm they had installed, so I can put one in now.

 

Geez, $800!? They seem very proud of those, don't they? I think I'd look at Viper. Of course there are other good ones out there. One word of caution though, just make sure the installer knows what he is doing. A guy in my area had an alarm and remote start put in his Ram, then started having all sorts of electrical issues. The dealership had to replace a lot of his wiring harness and ended up taking the alarm and starter out, all on his nickel. The installer won't stand behind his installation, so he's sort of screwed.

Almost forgot - The factory alarm runs only a couple hundred dollars. So the remainder must be the install cost. I understand a computer upgrade is needed once the install is done, otherwise the truck won't even start. Keep that in mind if you decide to go with the Mopar unit and put it in yourself. You'd most likely have to have the truck towed to the dealer and have them do the finishing touches.

 

Yeah, to continue what mazz was saying, if you do get someone other than Dodge to put your alarm in, do some research on the company (how long they have been in business, do they guarantee their work, and recommendations from other customers, etc, etc). The reason I say this is because I had an alarm put on my Mustang when I got it and not long after that the wiring from the alarm shorted out the lock/unlock switch on the driver side door and since it wasn't a Ford alarm, it wasn' covered under warranty and I had to pay out of pocket for them to fix it.

 

I know all about having a good installer do the work. What I am tring to figure out is what type the dealer put in because all they did when I said no was remove the brain, so the harness's with all connectors is sitting there. So I need to buy the same type of alarm and then just plug it in.

 

looks like it is a karr system, Has anyone dealt with these.I have a viper 300+ in my TJ and might be able to run both off one remote if I go that route

 

For security reasons most alarms now days have frequency hopping technology. Basically it means that you cant use the same remote for multiple cars. Otherwise you could go to the mall and unlock a couple of hundred cars haha. As for aftermarket alarms, I used to go to Circuit City. They have a nation-wide warranty (being in the military this is a plus for me). They even used to say that they would take out the alarm out of the vehicle for trade-in and install it for free in the new one. Never took them up on it.

 

My 2004 came with a factory alarm. I think the brand name is Auto-Mate. I don't have power door locks but it still works fine.

I too have had problems with a small company going out of business after installing a Viper alarm on my van.