Question regarding remote starters.............

[TravisM.1]

I've got this Bulldog remote starter.

I had it on my Wife's Mazda 626 a few years ago before the car crapped out with crazy ignition/distributor/timing problems. On the other hand, the car had 190k miles on it when it died.

Have any of you guys heard of any ignition problems caused by remote car starters? I'd like to use the starter on my Explorer, but I'm leary. I want to say that high mileage finally got to an otherwise problem-free car, but I'm not sure.

 

[k-dog]

I've got one on my full size Chevy pickup but I very rarely use it. My uncle had a factory one on his Subaru Baha and he had lots of problems with it. The car would shut down on him in the middle of the Baltimore Beltway. He eventually had them remove it from the car it was causing so many problems (car was out of warranty).

 

[TravisM.1]

This one worked fine for the year-and-a-coupla-months it was on the car. No shutting down, never didn't start when she pushed the button.

ETA- The Explorer is a 96, so it doesn't have any new-fangled chipped keys or anything like that.

 

[Doc]

I'd give it a shot if I were you Travis. I've never heard of a remote starter causing timing issues. However my old truck and old boat both had timing issues this year. Because they are old. I think that is common.
I've never used a remote starter but my son and daughter have both had them. No problems except for when you have a remote starter on a car with a standard tranny and forget to put it in neutral when you shut off last. The car would jump a foot or two when he tried to start it with it in gear. Otherwise the starters worked like a charm. They were on mid ninties vehicles also.

 

[k-dog]

I have a 96 Explorer too! Mine is Eddie Bauer V-8 all wheel drive. It is starting to nickle and dime me though. In the last couple of years I've put a couple thousand into it (air conditioner/heat control $800, tie rods were another $800 and a couple of other things). Just can't see buying a new one though. I got about 150,000 miles or so on it. I'm hoping it will last another year or two.

 

[TravisM.1]

My Explorer is a "Sport" model. 4.0, automatic, "Control-Trac" 4wd.

 

[OhioTC18]

Travis,
My son had two computers replaced on his Explorer. The second one wasn't warranted because he had a non-factory remote starter.

I had a Bulldog on my 2003 F150. The wiring diagram was printed wrong. If you turned the key to accessory, all the dash lights and buzzers came on just like you had the key turned to "run". It seemed to start just fine with it, but something was wired wrong. A year later Bulldog printed a new diagram with the right info in it. When the "check engine light" came on once, I removed the remote starter, not wanting Ford to blame the problem on that.

 

[Kwiens]

I've had remote starters on four of our cars in the past 15 years and have not had a single problem related to them. They were/are on Toyotas. The Toyota Cressida was the hardest one to have wired properly but the installers knew what extra "parts" it needed to work properly.

I love the remote starter/keyless entry systems, they're especially nice in summer when I can enter a "cool" car!!

K

 

[garygaboury]

You can buy a new remote start for $50+ install. I'm confident saying the remote start had nothing to do with the death of your other car but if you're going to worry about it it's worth the money to buy a new one. Wouldn't it be nice next year when your battery, alternator, etc, etc quits not to think back and wonder if it's the remote start?

The biggest expense/worry is the install. Make sure you take it to a good shop to install it. Most problems come from less than ideal instalations. If it's installed correctly it should easily outlast the explorer.

Gary

 

[TravisM.1]

Thanks for the input, guys. As I've said above, I wasn't sure if old age had been the death of the Mazda, but I was leary of the starter because of it.

I was digging around a little at home. It seems that I've either lost on of the connectors for it, or mistakenly left it in the car when it was hauled off. The key fob is nowhere to be found.

New, complete starters are priced from ~$59 for the base model, up to ~$150 for a deluxe model. I'm thinking I'd like something "middle of the road".

I did my own install on the starter in question, as well as a few others, with nothing going wrong with any of the other installations. I'm an electrician by trade, and I used to work in a car audio installation shop.