For the past couple of hours, my 2003 S60's alarm has been going off at random intervals for no reason. When I go to look, there's nobody outside who can be messing with it. A couple of times I stood there and waited, and it went off. Sometimes it does it every few seconds, other times its several minutes.

I even tried keeping the car unlocked, and it's STILL going off. I tried driving it around the block, but that's not satisfying it.

I cannot find any threads anywhere on the 'net about this being an issue, nor can I find anything in the driver's manual about how to disconnect the bloody thing - it's driving me nuts, and probably driving the neighbors nuts too.

I've owned it for almost a full year now, and it's never had this issue before.

Anyone have ANY experience with this or advice? I can't take it to the shop today, nor anytime soon - I just dropped a lot of money getting my wife's car fixed, now this happens. I won't be able to deal with this going off all night, so can anyone tell me what the deal is or if there's any way to physically disconnect the alarm? Thanks...

Edit: It seems that it turns itself OFF on its own, too...the first time this happened I thought it was a neighbor's car, but the second time I saw it was mine. It just went off again and frustrated, I let it do its thing, and it stopped after 15 or so seconds. What's the deal?

Edit 2: I just went to Radio Shack to change out the battery in the remote, thinking that might be part of the problem. It's not - it's still going off.

Is there a fuse I can pull?

 

The siren is probably bad and it is a pain to get to it. I am not an expert on the electrical issues on these cars but here is the Volvo link that shows you how to get to the siren or replace it.
http://vccs.volvocars.se/accessories...a-7e60a008779e

Mine did the same thing with the siren and I had mine replaced at the dealer. Most of the 460 dollar bill was labor as you can expect.

 

Thanks for the reply, saluki_s60.

I was afraid of this. However, the alarm has not gone off for the last two and a half hours. Did you experience this kind of intermittent pain-in-the-rear occurance?

Edit: It's been good now for about five hours. I pray it doesn't start this garbage in the middle of the night. I'll make some calls to some mechanics in the morning. If anyone else has any input or experience with this issue, it would be appreciated.

 

Yes when it goes bad it has mind of its own. I would lock it and 5 mins later it would go off, sometimes it would start going off as I drove down the street etc. The part itself is very cheap and you can sometimes find it on e-bay.

 

Looking at my bill now from the dealer I am seeing that they replaced the alarm control module and the siren and a I was also charged for a software item (for some reason the software charge is omni present on dealer bills). So, it would be best to get the alarm codes pulled and only the dealer can do that if I am not mistaken.

 

Have you found out what was causing your alarm to go off?
My s60 is doing it as well, with out the siren thank god! just the four way flashers blink... but wont stop on its own. The dash sayes the alarm needs servicing and the little red dashboard light goes nuts when it goes off.
Anyone?

 

i Can understnad why you had and always have a software charge on your bill from the dealer. everything on these cars is computer and software controlled. Even the stereo (moreso as an anti-theft feature)

 

To update, my alarm obviously stopped doing this a long time ago.

What's strange is, I started engaging the parking brake when parking the vehicle, and the alarm stopped going off all the time.

I've never heard of such a thing. There have been moments where I forget to set the brake but nothing happens; I doubt these two things are related, but the coincidence is odd. Regardless, it's not been an issue since.

 

I have a 2002 S60. My alarm started going off randomly after the car was sitting for several hours. If I shut the alarm off, it would sound again after about 5 min. As a temporary fix, I was still able to lock the car w/o setting the alarm by pressing the lock button on the passenger arm rest. (For some reason that has never set the alarm on my car.) I don't have interior sensors. To address the problem, I removed fuse #38 from the panel to the right of the driver's door. The manual says the alarm will sound if you do this, but I believe they left out the word 'not'. Now when I lock the car, the alarm still sets, though I know that only the outside lights will flash when it trips. I get the message 'Alarm system service required', which is also fine by me. I believe from researching other forums that the problem was due to incipient failure of the backup siren battery, but I'm happy w/o a siren. Who's going to steal a 2002 Volvo?