The Toyota Landcruiser Owners Club

[potshot]

As those who have been following my posts will know I have been having a nightmare with this alarm system on my '98 Colorado VX LWB. Six weeks ago, yes six weeks ago, the system developed problems with the alarm going off, went through the usual replacing batteries in the fob (we only ever had one), trying to resync the fob, trying to reset the system with the ECU. Eventually the system failed in the armed position - disaster. No new parts were available, the system was a thrid party system rebadged by Toyota and fitted on the vehicles on import. The suppliers of the system had apparently gone out of business and since the vehicle is over 10 years old Toyota believe they don't need to do anything about it (under consumer law they don't either). Since the system was locked in the armed position no secondhand ECU would work because it would have already been programmed.  Meantime the garage had bought a pair of new fobs but couldn't get them to work.

Getting advice from our local Exeter Toyota dealer was a waste of time besides they were too busy to help the OH when the system failed in Exeter. Our local garage in the village were brilliant, they operate a large breakdown and recovery service and so their knowledge on dealing with alarm systems was surprisingly good. Hours were spent trawling this most excellent forum and getting lots on info was very productive. Roundsell Toyota in Barnstaple were very helpful as were Toyotaworld in Bristol whose details were got from the forum as they had helped other forum members previously.

We did discover from Toyota Head Office that advice was available on how to completely remove the old system and rewire the connections to the engine management to return the car to its pre-import condition. They advised us to look on the techdoc.toyota-europe.com website but that our indepenent garage would have to pay and/or pay to use the hotline (at 0960 premium rates). The alternative would be recovering the car to Rounsdwell in Barnstaple and once they had removed they system the car could be taken to have new system (£350) fitted.

We were getting nowhere. The ECU has been sent to an electronics expert to see what he could do but he was getting nowhere fast. He went off to some large conference and becasue he was getting pissed off with the ECU problem, acutally took it with him. At the conference he met a Lithuanian bloke (stop laughing please) and this guy said take the chip out of the original fob and put it in one of the new fobs and unlock the system.   I said stop laughing - IT BLOODY WORKED!!!!!!  

So I hope this will be helpful to anyone else suffering the same problems

[Google]

[lucky]

Sounds like the Lithuanian bloke has some experience working around alarms - anyone know a good Fence for stolen cars.

Sorry, couldn't resist and not accusing our eastern european brethren of being involved in the car dismantling business of course  

Good that you found someone who knew how to fix it, shame that Toyota didn't  
_________________
1999 Land Cruiser Amazon VX Active 4.2TD Auto
Gloucestershire 4x4 Response
Landcruiser-rocks