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[Andy B]

I fitted a brand new power sounder to my car last year sometime. I wanted to start the car today to attack the manifold to down pipe exhaust leak, needless to say, the battery was a flat as a very flat thing. So I connected my battery charger up, and shortly after the PS kept chirping & wailing every now & then for half a sec or so. I tried to bear with it but for the neighbours' sake I unplugged it. A few hours later after there was a bit of charge in the main battery I tried again - same as before.
I'm glad I spent £60 ( ) on something that has lasted a year 


and the downpipe to manifold gaskets are £10odd each! 

[omegod]

Never even considered replacing mine,, just threw them all as far as I can throw them. 

A year is crap though, was there a build date on it?

[Andy B]

... 

A year is crap though, was there a build date on it?

I never even thought to look, but yes there is - 10/08/10 

[omegod]

Not sure how 2 years on a shelf would have affected it

[Kevin Wood]

Might be worth leaving it plugged in to see if it behaves once its' internal battery has charged back up, but tricky if it's going to be wailing all the time. Tried wrapping it in a towel?

[Andy B]

Might be worth leaving it plugged in to see if it behaves once its' internal battery has charged back up, but tricky if it's going to be wailing all the time. Tried wrapping it in a towel?

Kinda what I was thinking, but the trill was p'ing me off 

[Andy B]

The sounder itself is U/S. When plugged in & quiet, you just need to touch the casing & it'll trigger the alarm. 

I'll take a hacksaw to it & look see. 

[tunnie]

Glad I binned all of ones in ours, amount of times battery has been whipped off, flat battery and other things. Annoyed the hell out of me too, useless bloody things!

[Andy B]

Cut open & there's nothing to see.   

[Kevin Wood]

It might have suffered the same fate as mine. Corrosion from the batteries spread up the connector pins into the connector on the car loom making that dodgy. Even a decent PS on my car has a hair trigger due to a dodgy connector on the loom. Keep meaning to ask AndyC if a new connector is available.

[Dave DND]

No reason why that powersounder won`t come back to life with a bit of charge - it may sound whilst charging it up, but thats the price you are going to have to pay for letting the main vehicle battery go flat.

They are not supposed to do that, and wern`t designed to do that - hence problems ! 

Keep battery charged and all should be well.

[Andy B]

No reason why that powersounder won`t come back to life with a bit of charge - it may sound whilst charging it up, but thats the price you are going to have to pay for letting the main vehicle battery go flat.

They are not supposed to do that, and wern`t designed to do that - hence problems ! 

Keep battery charged and all should be well.

Thanks Dave. I charged the car's battery over night & so far, I've had it connected to the car with no problems (glued it back together with Sikaflex  )

So far so good. 

[pscocoa]

Had same thing with mine - replaced car battery which was knackerred and power sounder returned to normal

[SR-71Blackbird]

Not to scare you but when mine was making noises on I asked on here and some people mentioned fires when it totally failed so Mark took it out for me and haven't looked back

[Magwheels]

Hmm interesting, so where is the power sounder supposed to be on a 95 CDX diesel estate then?

I did look under the scuttle but it doesn't seem to be there and no wiring either!

I better have a look at mine as there battery is fairly new and drops quite a bit of charge after standing for a while.

Its never gone off when I have been doing various things to the car so I would assume its knackered.

[Andy B]

Hmm interesting, so where is the power sounder supposed to be on a 95 CDX diesel estate then?

I did look under the scuttle but it doesn't seem to be there and no wiring either!

I better have a look at mine as there battery is fairly new and drops quite a bit of charge after standing for a while.

Its never gone off when I have been doing various things to the car so I would assume its knackered.

The power sounder should live under the scuttle on the driver's side, if you remove the Torx drive screw, lift the end of the scuttle up, you should be able to see it.
Does a CDX have an alarm?  Does one of the buttons under the radio have an image of a man running away from 3 curved lines ))) ?

[aaronjb]

Is 1995 old enough to have the IR remote locking rather than RF? I think the alarm system was very different..

[Marks DTM Calib]

If its the IR setup then there is no power sounder.

As for the battery, if the Nicad has been discharged for a while then you can expect it not to recover particulalrly given the wanky charging circuit in these items.

As always with this particular delight, remove it, beat it with a large stick and then bin it.

[Magwheels]

Hi guys,

Thanks for responding, yes it does have an alarm and the internal sensor deactivation switch. Yes it also has the IR remote. Mines one of the very early ones I think!!

I did have a good look around under the scuttle on the offside and if you are saying they haven't got a power sounder then that would make sense as there ain't nothing there!

At least if there's nothing there it's not going to catch light!!!

[Shackeng]

Interesting reading Dave DND's article on Power sounders above. I have removed them from both of mine, but as Dave points out, insurance companies could well use this to refuse a claim, which could be very expensive in a 3rd party incident.

[Kevin Wood]

Interesting reading Dave DND's article on Power sounders above. I have removed them from both of mine, but as Dave points out, insurance companies could well use this to refuse a claim, which could be very expensive in a 3rd party incident.

I wonder if they could make that stick if the lack of a power sounder was not material in causing the incident, TBH, but it's best to avoid giving them any rope with which they can hang you.

The sounder batteries can be replaced easily if the PCB hasn't been damaged by leakage.

[ronnyd]

Hi guys,

Thanks for responding, yes it does have an alarm and the internal sensor deactivation switch. Yes it also has the IR remote. Mines one of the very early ones I think!!

I did have a good look around under the scuttle on the offside and if you are saying they haven't got a power sounder then that would make sense as there ain't nothing there!

At least if there's nothing there it's not going to catch light!!!

As you say, yours is too old to have a power sounder and if there was one fitted you would probably have a big yellow
sticker saying as much under the bonnet near the slam panel.

[Marks DTM Calib]

Real world, an insurance assesor (I know a few) wont even know where to look for a power sounder let alone if there should be one there. Whats more, removal leaves behind a horn and a connector.

At the end of the day they get very little time to view vehicles, even less on low value ones.

Given the issues with them and the real world facts, remove, bludgen to death, bin.....replacing batteries does not address the fundamental poor design of the charge and supply circuitry which is the route cause of the faults.

[Dave DND]

Real world, an insurance assesor (I know a few) wont even know where to look for a power sounder let alone if there should be one there. Whats more, removal leaves behind a horn and a connector.

At the end of the day they get very little time to view vehicles, even less on low value ones.

Really ?  Please let me enlighten you then.

As an Insurance Assesor myself, I can confirm that we all read these forums, learn the tricks that you guys get up to and we also report back to our employers who collate a lot of this stuff togather. You are right, we do not get much time to inspect a vehicle, hence the checklists for what we call "the bleedin obvious" and I can assure you that one of the pre-filled details that comes through is the declaration by the insured as to the security status of the vehicle. Many have been declared as Thatcham category 1, and on the checklist for us (on the Omega) are things like bonnet switch disconnection and is the power sounder present. If not, then we report back, and take it from me, the insurance companies take a very dim view of false declarations.

Why do you think I keep banging on about it on here?

 

[Marks DTM Calib]

Well let me give you some real world feedback then.

Having had two omegas written off, both with power soudner removed, I have had no issues and in all the life of the forum, not once has there ever been an issue relating to such an item not being present.

Hence I stand by my statement, remove the unreliable and serious issue causing device and sleep more comfortably at night.