DIY - Alarm, remote start, + extra's install

[Trumpster]

This guide is to help those who want to install their own alarm, learn a bit in the process, and save some money all at once. I do recommend that you have some experience with cars and electronics before you attempt this. If you do not have any experience with taking your car apart and begin to feel uncomfortable or begin to think that you're in over your head TAKE YOUR CAR TO A PROFESSIONAL. It WILL save you time and money to have someone else do it before you mess things up. That being said I TAKE NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR ACTIONS IN FOLLOWING THIS DIY. However if you do follow this DIY then you shouldn't have any issues at all. Just be careful and take your time, it's not a race, it's an install.

An overview of what's going in:

Python 990 Alarm (Made by DEI, same thing as a Viper or Clifford)
- Keyless entry
- Remote Start with Starter Kill and Turbo Timer
- Shock Sensor
- Digital Tilt Sensor (DEI 507M)
- Backup Battery (DEI 520T)
- Window Roll up and Window Roll Down "Circuits" (relays)
- Individual Door Pins (because of how the remote start works, covered later)
- Parking Light Flash
- Siren
- Bypass Module for Remote Start (DEI 556UW)

A list of "basic" tools you should have before starting:
- A good digital multi-meter and/or a "power probe" (if you choose to use a power probe be sure to get one that is airbag safe!)
- A torx bit set (also referred to as "star bits")
- A screw driver set
- A panel popper set (can be picked up at harbor freight, Sears, or any tool store)
- A pick set (also available at most hardware/tool stores)
- A Skew Driver (http://veedubb.com/gallery/albums/miscpics/STP80499.sized.jpg)
- A set of wire strippers with varying gauge sizes (from about 12awg to 20awg)
- A set of crimpers ( I use Klein crimpers, available at Sears also. My favorite by far)
- A set of "flush cuts" (the blue set of wire cutters you will see in pics below)
- "T-Tap" pliers (a set of needle nose pliers will do fine as well)
- A "Total-Recall Tool" aka wire grabber and/or a coat hanger (http://www.tool-rack.co.uk/catalogue/trput4.jpg)
- Various sizes of connectors including:
- Male spades
- Female spades
- Ring terminals
- T-Taps
- Butt connectors
- A soldering iron and solder
- Plenty of electrical tape (I used 2 rolls)

That should about cover it for what you need. It would also be a good idea to get a work light, I bought a 30 LED work light by ATD and I love it to death. It's one of my install essentials if you will. Now, onto the start of things.

This is what's going in: (Thank you Vanna "VturbosnailW" White)

Now the basics out of the box, this is about what you should have. I left the hood pin and one of the useless harnesses out of this picture.

The "extras": remote start bypass (sends chip signal to ignition), backup battery, and digital tilt sensor)

NOTE: These wire colors and functions are DEI alarm wire codes. These will not apply to all brands and types of alarms. Please refer to the install manual on the alarm that you are installing for detailed wire color and functions.

NOTE: This install was done on my 2003 20th Anniversary Edition GTI. Not all wire colors will be the exact same for all MKIV VW's. Be sure to TEST YOUR WIRES before you tag them. I have seen cars of the same generation have completely different wire colors but the locations of the wires should all be the same.

The wires that were used off the primary harness (12 pin) for this install were:
- Red/white: (-) output to window roll-up relay
- Red: (+) input from backup battery (or to 12v+ if you're not using a backup battery)
- Brown: (+) output to siren
- Black: (-) input chassis ground
- Green: (-) door trigger input
- White: (+) output to light flash
- Orange: (-) ground while armed output to digital tilt sensor
NOTE: Most installs will not use the orange wire, it is generally used only for accessories such as the digital tilt sensor that was installed.

Auxiliary harness (6 pin):
- White/black: (-) output to window roll down relay
- Green/white: (-) output to lock wire for factory alarm re-arm
- Light Green/Black: (-) output to unlock wire for factory alarm disarm

Door Lock harness (3 pin):
Blue: (-) output to unlock wire
Green: (-) output to lock wire

Remote Start Ribbon Harness:
This simply plugs into the brain and also into the "heavy gauge" ignition interface relay pack. You do not have to splice these wires to anything, it is "plug and play"

"Heavy gauge relay satellite connector":
Purple: (+) output to starter motor
Green: (+) input from ignition (key side of starter wire)
Red: (+) 12v+ input ("high current")
Orange: (+) output to accessory wire in ignition harness
Pink: (+) output to primary ignition wire (also serves as ignition input)
Red: (+) 12v+ input ("high current")
Red/white: (+) 12v+ input ("high current")
NOTE: The pink/white wire is not used on our cars. Pink/white is a second ignition wire and is not required when doing remote start on our cars (MKIV's). Also, I did not get pictures of this, but you can "combine" 2 of the 12v+ inputs (I combined the red/white and one of the red wires) to reduce the number of wires being ran to the ignition harness.

Remote start harness (5 pin):
- Black/white: (-) input from neutral safety switch
- Violet/black: (+) input from tachometer wire
- Brown: (+) input from brake wire
NOTE: If you drive an automatic you can simply ground the black/white wire. The automatic transmission will not allow you to start the car in gear so you don't have to worry about this. Ground this wire. I also grounded this wire because I was doing a turbo timer install and hooked a switch up to the clutch wires. This will be covered later.

Secondary remote satellite harness:
- Blue: (-) output to bypass module for remote start. This wire tells the remote start bypass module when to send the chip signal from the key to the ignition to allow the car to start without a key in the ignition.

With the information above, time to start the prep. Cut off the wires that you won't be using but leave about 3 or 4 inches of "slack" when you do; this way if you cut the wrong wire off you won't be kicking yourself if you have to put it back together. Be sure to wrap the end of each wire in electrical tape to isolate it from the other wires! If you don't they could "feed" each other signals and you could end up with some strange alarm behavior.

Once you have your wires all chopped off and wrapped away from each other, we can start making our wires look better. Take your cordless drill and place the end of two wires that you want to run together in the end of the drill. Tighten the chuck of the drill onto the two wires.

Now you can do one of several things: have a friend hold the other end of the wires, set the harness on the ground and stand on the other end of the wires, or place the harness in a vice. Whichever option you choose be sure to have pressure on the wires BEFORE the harness so you don't pull the pins out of the harness! I chose option two, standing on the end of the wires.

Now start twisting your wires together. Don't twist too tight, you don't want to break the wires. You should end up with something like this

Be sure to combine wires where you can. For example, the factory alarm disarm, factory alarm arm, lock, unlock, and our window roll up and roll down wires will all go to the same 2 wires in the car (the lock and unlock wires). So combine them now to save time and trouble down the road. From left to right you see the unlock wire combined with the factory alarm disarm wire, the lock wire combined with the factory alarm arm wire, and the output wire for the window roll down relay.

I also added 2 wires about 3 inches long to that splice. I used these later on to connect my window circuits.
NOTE: Notice the blue cutters on the floor; these are the "flush cuts" I mentioned earlier in tools you'll want to have.

When setting up the relays for the window circuits, you can use the following information. This information applies only to standard 5 post Bosch style relays and the purpose/application we are using them for!

Post Information:
30: (-) ground
85: (-) input from alarm
86: (+) constant 12v+
87a: nothing
87: (-) output (to lock or unlock wire for roll up or roll down respectively)

This is a partial setup of my relay so you can see how I connected the wires. You can also use female spades for this, they work just as well as soldering for this application.

Continue prepping and twisting wires together. Cover your wires in electrical tape (black preferred) when you are done twisting. This will help hold the wires together and also make it harder for any thieves to figure out what wire does what should they ever get their head under the dash of your car. You should end up with something looking like this when you're all done.

Ok, so you've now spent probably somewhere in the range of 2 hours prepping your alarm. Good job. Now let's get onto the install part where we can have some real fun. I like to remove most of the panels that I need to before I start running wires. You can remove them in whatever order you like; I will just place them in the order I removed them in just to keep things in "order".

Start by taking off the fuse cover panel. Pry carefully as to not scratch anything. Once the first "pop" comes undone, simply stick your fingers in there and gently pull.

Now start removing the under-dash panels. These screws are torx 20 screws. There are 3 along the bottom, once you have those removed pull straight out on the left under-dash panel and it should come right off.

Once you remove the left under-dash panel you should end up with this.

The 2 screws on the far left and far right are machined screws and are also torx 25 bits, not torx 20 like the others. There are 2 screws on either side of the steering column as indicated by the 2 red arrows.

[Trumpster]

Remove the one screw in the center, then pull straight out on the right under-dash panel.
Now remove the rest of the screws. The metal under-dash piece needs to be lifted up slightly, then pulled out bottom first. Once the bottom is pulled out a bit it should come down and out easily.

It's easiest to remove the very underside panel if you stick your fingers on the backside of the clip indicated in this picture and press out from behind.

Be sure to set these panels in a safe place where you will not step on them, run over them with the car, or where other damages or accidents can occur. Also be sure to keep good track of your screws, after all no one likes a rattley car.

Because of the way that the remote start works, we will be running individual door pins. This includes the rear hatch in my case or the trunk for you Jetta/Passat owners. To remote start our cars and not set off the factory alarm, we have to first disarm the factory alarm; unfortunately this also unlocks the drivers door and turns on the dome light, which would then cause the aftermarket alarm to think a door was opened setting it off every time the car was remote started. Hence why we are running individual door trigger wires. If you want to know other ways to get around this issue you can PM me.

There is (or should be) a light in the trunk/hatch that turns on only when the trunk/hatch is opened. We can use this for our trunk/hatch trigger. To get the light out to where you can access the harness you should be able to just gently pull out with your fingers from the front first.

The wire used here is the brown/blue wire which shows a ground (-) when the hatch is opened.

It is important that you use a diode to isolate each door trigger wire from the others. If you don't the feedback from one wire to another could cause issues (although it is not entirely common). The picture below shows how a diode should be wired inline of the door trigger wire. ALWAYS COMPLETELY tape your connections, this one is left open for reference and shows the direction the signal from the door trigger will flow by reference of the red arrow.

NOTE: A positive signal will not flow through a diode the same way as a negative (ground) signal will. If you are unclear of how diodes work, please look it up or ask someone who can tell you.

Now to get to a place where we can run the wire, you can either "cheat" and simply tuck the wire just under the edge of your interior panels, or you can do what I did and remove the panels completely. The removal is obviously different from Jettas and GTI's but you should be able to figure it out (that means you Jetta/Passat Folks)

Start by gently prying back on the side panel in the door jam. You will need to get slightly under the weather stripping/door seal for this

Once you get that portion of the panel pulled back, you will need to pop a couple of panel pops out; unfortunately I didn't get pictures of this but there are only 3 or 4 of them and they are along the side you just pryed up and along the bottom of the panel. Once you get those loose, for the GTI simply lift up on the whole panel and it should pop up and out. You will see where to pull loose the rear bit of the panel, it's pretty obvious.

NOTE: GTI folks – you may need to remove your rear seats to get these panels out, I removed mine just to make things easier. If you need help removing your rear seats PM me or ask a fellow dubber in your area, they may be able to help.

For Jetta folks, once you get one side of the “B pillar” loose you should be able to simply work that panel out without too much issue by pulling up and towards the rear of the car.

Now go ahead and move your way back up to the front of the car to remove the hood pop handle. This part is very easily and commonly broken when people try to remove it improperly. This is what the handle looks like when removed

To get the handle off, pull on the handle and unlatch the hood; keep the handle pulled out. With the handle still pulled out you should be able to feel the slot that you can see in the picture above; use a panel popper, flat blade screw driver, or as I used a 90* pick to pull that piece out. I was not able to completely pull that piece out with the handle pulled, so I released the handle back to it's resting position and then reached around the panel and simply pulled the piece out with my fingers. Once that “block” has been removed the handle should pull right off without any fuss.

Now you can pull up and out on the kick panel and it should come out fairly easily. There will be some resistance and you will need to be careful separating it from the running board panel as there is a connecting panel hook between the two.

There are 2 phillips head screws at the B pillar in the running board panel that secure the panel to the car. Be sure to remove these before pulling up on the running board panel to remove it otherwise you may be buying yourself a new panel. With those 2 screws removed simply pull up on the running board panel; there are panel pops about every 6 inches or so and they are quite stiff. Just take your time with them, if you break one don't panic, they can easily be glued back on with good result.

Another piece that you may choose to remove is the “dead pedal”. If you do this to route wires around DO NOT PULL OUT on the deal pedal! There is one torx 20 screw at the top of the dead pedal then you PUSH UP on the dead pedal. If you pull out before you push up, you WILL snap most if not all of the clips off the back and may risk a loose dead pedal. I did not have to remove my dead pedal but did so anyways just in case; someone was kind enough to have snapped all those panel holder hooks off for me but my pedal still seems to sit fairly snug when screwed down.

Now that you have the panels removed that you need to get out to run your wires nice and clean from the trunk on up to your under dash area. It's usually a good practice to run your wires with a loom (bundle) of factory wiring using zip ties or tape to hold them along with the factory wires. If there are no factory wires then just pull up the edge of the carpet and tuck your wires down to where they aren't going to interfere with anything; usually down to the floor to avoid bumps in your carpet.

Time for the other door triggers now, we will start with the passenger door. Jetta and GTI door panel removal is the same, Passats I'm not 100% sure on but I would imagine they are very similar.
Reference the image below for the following instructions. Start at the blue arrow in the direction indicated with a panel popper to pop the “outside” of the handle off. This will be stiff on most vehicles so you may have to be stern with it. You will want to start at the blue arrow so you don't scratch the “soft touch” material off the handle, once it starts going it practically disentigrates.

The red circles indicate torx 20 screws in the panel and the yellow circles indicate phillips head screws. The upper screw on the door jam side of the panel is where your “Skew Driver” will come in handy. Once you have all the screws removed, grab your panel popper or carefully get your fingers under the panel where the torx 20 screws were at and pull out. This will pop the panel pops loose; work your way from the bottom of the door out and up around the sides until the door panel is “hanging loose” from only the top. Now lift up on the outer edge of the door panel (the side closest to the door lock) and the top of the door panel should lift right off the door. It is a good idea to roll down the window before removing the door panel so it is easier to put the panel back on later without the glass in your way. Unplug the misc. harnesses and set the door panel aside.

This is where you will want to go to get the door trigger wire, it is brown/white. Be sure to reference the diode wiring example I posted up earlier, you don't want to have to pull the door panel again if you goof up. Also be careful when cutting the tape off the wires, you don't want to cut any wires!

Strip that wire and connect your door trigger wire with the diode inline to it. I soldered this wire but you can t-tap if you'd like. Follow the picture below for a good route for this wire. Just follow right along the factory harness.

Running that wire is where your coat hangar or wire grabber is going to come in handy. A good method to getting wires through tight spots is to stick the hangar through, tape the wire onto the hangar, then pull the hangar back through. It is best to run the wire through the door jam boot to avoid pinches or other issues. I did not get pictures of removing the ends of the door jam boots as my photographer and I were getting tired in 100+ degree heat If you have trouble, again PM me.

It should be obvious where this wire is going when you stick your hand in the kick panel. Tuck the wire behind the carpeting and route it to the drivers side of the car behind the center of the dash.

There is a small panel on the drivers side of the center dash console that will need to be removed, it looks like a phillips head screw is holding it on but it's not really a screw. Stick your fingernails around it and pull it out, it's a “post style” securing system. Pull that out, then the panel should pull out, down, and off.

Now lets move over to the driver side door. Again, my photographer got a little lax and didn't snap some pics of the panel removal for you all, but I think you'll get the idea. The only real difference between the driver and passenger door is how the outer handle piece comes off. Instead of an outer handle piece it's the switch panel on the drivers door.

First you need to remove the INNER piece of the switch panel. Do this by gently taking your panel popper and pressing down and towards the door panel. You may be able to do this with your fingers but you will probably have to use a panel popper. Once you get this little piece out, you should be able to grab the edge of the switch panel and pull up. There are panel clips around the entire outer edge of the switch panel so it will probably be stiff. Again, you may have to use a panel popper tool for this. Once you get that up and off, driver door panel removal is the same as the passenger door.

Once you have the driver's door panel off you will be going to the same place you went for the passenger door. Below is a picture of the wires you will be tagging. Brown/white is door trigger, yellow/blue is the lock wire, and red/green is the unlock wire.

You should only have 3 wires to run through this door if you combined them as suggested earlier. Just as in the passenger door run the wires along the factory harness and follow them through the door boot.

Now that we have most of the longer, harder wire runs out of the way let's get the antenna and LED mounted. Starting with the antenna, a prime place for the antenna is just above the rear view mirror. You can have a friend help you be sure it's centered by standing outside the car but if it's a tiny bit off you'll never notice. You will want to stick the antenna on the windshield WITH THE ANTENNA WIRE CONNETED and put it as close to the edge of the headliner as possible. This will reduce and most likely eliminate any wire from showing.

The red line in the picture indicates where the antenna wire is running. Using your fingers tuck the antenna wire up and under the edge of the headliner. Don't worry about hurting the headliner, it will give about ½'' or so before you get close to creasing it. You can see in the picture above where my panel popper is at, that is where you will want to go around the pillar panel. Tuck the wire up and under the top of that panel then down the side of the A pillar. To finish routing the antenna gently pull back on the door seal from outside the car and inside (using both hands if necessary) and pull it down. This will provide a perfect “track” for you to run the antenna wire in. Continue under the A pillar panel until you reach the dash then route the end of the wire through the opening in the dash above the fuse panel.

Next we have the LED, I hate the big bulky and tacky looking cover that comes on the LED's so I remove them to “flush mount” the LED. It looks 100x better and is just as bright if not brighter. To remove the LED casing take your crimpers and gently crimp down on the bottom of the LED casing, turn the LED and then repeat. It may take 2 or 3 times around the LED if you don't get the hang of it right off the bat be patient, it pays off.

Now that you have the casing removed find a place you'd like to mount the LED. I chose the panel just below the gauges but above the steering column. A great place for the LED to mount is a blank switch plate in the dash next to the hazard switch, but I chose not to do this as I plan to retrofit seat heaters into my Recaro's down the road. To pull this panel loose, simply grab at the very end (right or left) and pull STRAIGHT OUT. Not up or down, but straight out, the end should pop right out. Repeat on the other side and it will be loose.

The hole you drill will end up being just shy of 1/8''. Still I would start at a small bit, about 1/32'' or as small as you can and work your way up until the LED fits into the hole.

This is what you should end up with as an end result for a “flush mount”. To secure the LED the best thing is to hot glue it from the backside of the panel. I didn't have hot glue available so I used “strip caulking”. It does the job just fine.

Now is a great time to run the antenna for the remote start bypass module since you already have part of the upper steering column shroud removed. To remove the upper portion of th steering column shroud (which is all you will need for now, you may remove the entire shroud if you would like) there are two phillips head screws along the bottom side of the shroud near the steering wheel on the left and right. Undo these screws and the top shroud should pull right off along with the panel you just pulled to mount your LED in. This will make it easier to secure your LED as well.

I was unable to get to the additional screws behind my steering wheel to remove the bottom of the steering column shroud so I just worked around it. This gets semi difficult but if you take your time and be careful you should be fine. You are going to need to pull back on the little rubber piece around your key cylinder to feed the end of the antenna wire through there. I used a small flat blade screwdriver to do this and fed the plug through with my other hand. When you are feeding the antenna wire through here be careful not to pull too hard. There is only ONE strand of copper wire connected to the end of the antenna ring and if you break it you have just ruined your remote start bypass module and will need to go purchase a new one or hope someone is nice enough to replace it for you at the store you bought it from.

The red arrow indicates the direction in which you will need to feed the wire and you can see me in the process of tucking the antenna ring into the rubber circle.

This is about how it should look when it's tucked in, I was able to get it tucked a little farther in than that and still have it function just fine. NOTE: The antenna ring MUST sit forward a little bit in order for the sensor in the car to read the signal. If you tuck the ring to far back your car WILL NOT be able to read the chip signal and you will have to reposition the ring. Not a big deal but it can get annoying.

So now you are a good chunk into your alarm install. Take a break and chill for a few minutes, maybe have one of these (or rootbeer for those of you underage). It might not seem like you're all that far along, but you've got most of the hard part over with and soon you will be tying up all your connections.

I also assume by now that you have been putting door panels back on as you are moving on with your install and closing things back up that won't be used anymore. Now all that should really be open is the under dash area. I think that it pretty much goes without saying installation is the reverse of removal for everything we have taken off.

[Trumpster]

Now let's get the mounting of our digital tilt sensor out of the way. As per DEI instruction the sensor should be mounted at no more than a 45* angle from the “plane” of the vehicle and should be mounted with the imprinted words facing up. They provide you with a nice little piece of double sided sticky tape and the sensor mounts nicely to what I believe is the airbag module that is mounted to the floor of the car behind the center console area of the dash. You should have seen this module when you ran your hatch/trunk and passenger side door trigger wires around to the driver side of the car.

Now that you have that all mounted down, let's move onto the parking light wires. Our cars use a 2 wire system (one wire for each side of the car) so we will need to set up some more diodes.

In this picture you can see I labeled which direction the current will be flowing to help you understand diodes a little better if you don't already. The goal here is just so that no current feeds from one wire into the other. The silver line on the diodes should be closest to the male spades you see on my wires. Again, fully tape your connections! These pictures are for diode reference only, open connections can cause major issues if they short out!

The wires you will need to tap for the parking lights (or city lights as some call them) are shown below. They are found in the headlight switch harness. These wires are grey/purple and grey/brown.

By now you should be ending up with something that looks like a mess of wires hanging out of your under dash area, don't worry we will get around to cleaning that up soon. If you have not done so yet, find a good place to mount your alarm brain. You want this to be out of the way so that it is not easily found by someone who does not know where it is. The idea here is to hide it so that the thieves can't simply unplug it and go about stealing your car. The harder to reach the better. I will not post pictures of this to retain the effectiveness of my alarm mounting location.

Test mount the alarm first to be sure you will have enough clearance away from moving parts and/or panels that have to go back on. Once you have found a location that you are happy with plug in the LED, antenna, valet switch, and remote start ribbon harness as well as the other harnesses we are using. If you will not have enough room to make connections to the wires coming off the alarm brain make the wires long enough by splicing some extra onto the end so that you can finish your install. Once you have the brain mounted you can route your wires a little more effectively to where their end location will be. To keep things looking nice and making things harder for any thieves who may get their head under your dash, try to run your wires with factory harnesses to maintain an OEM look. This takes more wire but makes for a much better end result.

Also take the time now to find a good location for the backup battery, window roll up/roll down relays, and the remote start bypass module; again these should be hidden if possible. Perform a test fit to be sure you will have enough wire to reach your intended mounting locations. To secure the modules you can use zip ties, double sided sticky tape, or even make a custom bracket if you really feel like it. Feel free to get creative.

Now you should really have a pretty good mess coming from under your dash, but like I said, we will get to cleaning that up soon.

We have 2 more wires to run and then we can start actually making our final connections under the dash. The wires we have left to run are the siren wire(s) and the tach signal wire for the remote start. The tach wire is optional if you would like to do a “voltage sense” remote start install. If you choose to use voltage sense (this means that the alarm attempts to start the car and then waits to see if the voltage supplied to the alarm increases due to the alternator supplying power as opposed to the batter) you may experience issues with the car staying running but it is uncommon. I took the guaranteed route and just ran my tach wire.

Mount the siren in a suitable location away from extreme heat and/or moving parts. Here you see my mounting location and where I ran the wires indicated by the red line. There should be a grommet in the firewall that you can easily “punch” a hole in to route these wires through. I ran my siren wire(s) up along the weather stripping/seal along the top of the engine bay to hold them out of the way and keep them hidden.

You should route these wires down to where you intend to ground the alarm at. This is why earlier in the prep stage I recommended twisting the siren output and ground wires from the alarm together.

Now for the tach wire, run from the inside of the car up through the same grommet and up to your coilpacks. If you still have your engine cover on, you will need to remove this. You will want to grab a NON-COMMON wire off any one of the 4 (or 6 if you're rocking a VR) coilpacks. There should only be one wire that is different on the coilpacks, the other 3 wires should all be the same. Don't panic that you are messing with the wiring on your coilpack(s), if you do this carefully and seal your connection well with electrical tape you should have zero issues. Below you can see my solder joint for my tach wire.

DO NOT USE A T-TAP ON THIS CONNETION. It is far too suseptable to the elements and will over time either fail, or short out causing more issues. T-taps should only be used in DRY locations INSIDE the car to avoid problems. This is why I recommend soldering as many connections as possible. If you do not want to us a wire at the coilpacks for the tach signal you can reference [lnk]http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerothread?id=2742433[/lnk] for the behind the cluster or at the ECU option.

Ok, one last thing to mount and then we start making connections. This is the “extreme capacity satellite relay pack” or the “heavy gauge ignition interface” that we taped up in our prep process. These wires will be going up and connecting to the ignition harness so find a place to mount this relay pack where you will be able to get the wires to the ignition harness. It is not uncommon to mount this with or near the alarm brain.

Here are the wires you will be tagging.

The brown/red wire is the keysense wire, the black wire is the ignition wire, and the black/red wire is the accessory wire. The wire that you see cut in half (red/silver) is the starter wire. This is done for the starter kill to be effective. I decided to install it even though our cars have a starter kill/immobilizer built in, I figure overkill can't hurt. For the remote start and starter kill to work properly the green wire needs to go to the key cylinder side of the starter wire and the purple wire needs to go to the car side of the starter wire. If you wire this backwards your car will still start with the key but the aftermarket starterkill and the remote start will not function.

Tag on more wire....I know I said you were done, but I lied. You need to tag the brake wire at the brake switch. The brake switch is at the top of the brake pedal and the wire you are looking for should be black/red. Sorry for no picture here, but I will try to pop one up later if I can.
[Picture here.....later]

For you remote start people with a manual transmission, go back and look at the final under dash removal picture. The 2 wires you see above the tab I have circled are the two wires you will need to short together in order for the starter to engage without pushing in the clutch pedal. IF YOU ARE DOING THIS AND YOU LEAVE YOUR CAR IN GEAR AND REMOTE START IT, IT WILL ENGAGE THE STARTER. This means that if you leave your car in gear you will cause damage to your car, the property and/or persons that are in front of it. If you do not think you are capable of remembering to leave your car in neutral DO NOT DO THIS STEP and forget about remote start. People HAVE been killed by this, so PLEASE be responsible and careful!

To have the option of parking my car in gear when on a hill for example, I used the toggle switch provided in the alarm box and hooked it up to those two wires. When the switch is “off” the clutch needs to be pressed in for the starter to engage, when the switch is “on” those wires are “shorted” together making the car think the clutch is depressed. I HIGHLY advise doing this. This is also a good safeguard so that if you take your car to the mechanic or let someone else drive you can turn the clutch bypass off and your car and everyone around it will be safe.....at least from it running into anything

Now you get to clean up all of that wiring mess you see hanging down. During this stage of the install TAKE YOUR TIME. Think about where the wires need to go, where a good way to route them is, what wires you can run together/tape together to make the install look less cluttered, etc. While doing this portion of the install, don't be afraid to look at your wiring diagrams in your install manuals! In fact I would encourage you to double and triple check your wires before you connect them; it can save you a lot of frustration and fix time down the road. No one likes to “finish” an install only to have to pull it back apart and fix things that don't work.

It will look intimidating right now but if you took your time and ran things well earlier then you'll be just fine and that mess will start looking nice in just about an hour or two. At this point in the install you're on your own with your wiring diagrams and the information I have given you. Take your time and you should be fine.

Now that you have everything installed and connected, it's time to test things before you close it all up. First we need to go ahead and mount the shock sensor (now that all your wires are nice and taped/zip tied up of course ). You should mount the shock sensor in a place that is going to get some vibration but not be too loose or too stiff. A good place is usually around a nice tight bundle of wires near the steering column. Zip tie that little beast in place, shut all the doors and the hood, and arm the alarm; you should hear a single beep/chirp indicating the alarm armed. Good. Gently hit the windshield near the frame of the car; if the alarm does a few soft chirps at you then chances are you're set for the sensitivity of your shock sensor. Most likely though if you have never tuned a shock sensor before you will be going back into your car for the next 2 weeks adjusting it to get it just right so that loud cars and/or busses don't set off your alarm but do make it “chirp”.

The next step is to be sure your door locks work, I think you guys figure out that one on your own....you should have noticed that by now anyways

Now the ultimate test....the remote start. You need to teach the car the tach signal first. Start the car and within 10 seconds press and hold the valet switch. The LED should light up solid if it successfully learned the tach signal. Now go ahead and shut the door and arm the alarm. Now try out your remote start. If it works first try, congradulations! If it doesn't, start troubleshooting. The most common problem is the car not reading the chip signal from the remote start module. If the car cranks tries to start, then dies, this is most likely your issue. To test this theory stick your key in the ignition and try remote starting the car again (this can be done with the door open). If the car starts, try repositioning your antenna ring a little farther out. If that still doesn't work, you can keep trying to troubleshoot on your own or you can call DEI's tech support hotline. There are some helpful folks at DEI

I'm sure you get the idea by now, test everything you installed and fix/troubleshoot what you need to. If everything works the first time around and this is your first install, I commend you. Once you get everything working to your liking put the rest of your panels back on and you're good to go! Congradulations on installing your own alarm and remote start system!

I hope this DIY was useful to you guys. I hope that I was able to give a little back to the VW community with this. If you have any recommendations for edits on the DIY or need additional pictures please let me know and I will do what I can to edit them in.

I may need to upload the pictures in a bigger size, I will figure that out once this is posted and fix it asap if necessary.

Just for giggles.

[Fer]

your nuts!!! thats awesome great diy very detailed and great pics. although dont think ill try this any time soon

[silVRstoneGTI]

Thats my favorite kind of gatorade, Awsome write up.

[TheRedMouse]

i hope you were covering up those horribly spliced up wires, and not leaving them exposed.

[Trumpster]

Quote, originally posted by TheRedMouse »

i hope you were covering up those horribly spliced up wires, and not leaving them exposed.

Read the DIY before you bash. Under almost every picture with an open wire I emphasized to ALWAYS heat shrink or electrical tape EVERY connection. Thanks to silVRstoneGTI and FER for your comments.

to people who don't read.

Oh yeah, that gatorade is bomb

[agoodlife]

I park my ish in gear, this is no good for me.

[JettaJoey]

next DIY: removing the airbag warning sticker on the visor.

[99.5]

had this same alarm on my previous jetta. awesome alarm!! the range on it is incredible! props for the diy

[undecided52]

Wow. I don't have the energy to read all of this , but nice DIY regardless.

[CherryRED]

no keyless trunk pop? red/white: trunk pop, violet/black: window roll down, white/black: window roll up.

Also i know you dont need to tag both parking light wires, forget which one is needed b/c its been awhile but i know you only need one.

One more thing, about the clutch bypass.... i would use a relay to "short" or make contact of the 2 wires rather than just a toggle switch. The toggle swtich is a great idea like you said so you can turn off the remote start when other people are you using the car.

other than that good wrtie up

[spoof3r]

great write up...ima have to try this out

[VturbosnailW]

Considering we were at this ALL day, in that 100+ degree weather on black ashpault working on a black car...I'm more impressed that somehow we managed to completely avoid jumping in the pool all day haha...good experience though, and sorry for some of those "missed shots" I think i was just a puddle of darren on the ground during those parts, haha. On a side note, after that day, I think that gatorade should sponsor us...we consumed more than enough for what I feel is at least a million dollar contract

[Trumpster]

Quote, originally posted by CherryRED »

no keyless trunk pop? red/white: trunk pop, violet/black: window roll down, white/black: window roll up.

I chose not to do the trunk pop because I still have to carry my key with me and it does that function just fine I just used the red/white wire as the window roll up because that's a 1 button aux function and will be used more often than window roll down which requires you to press 2 buttons.

As far as the parking light wires go, every alarm I've done on an MKIV I've always ended up using 2 wires; however, if you do figure out what the single wire is feel free to let me know and I will add it to the DIY

VturbosnailW, I completely agree, we need an advertising contract with gatorade. I'll even go cheap and only ask for a half mil.

Thanks everyone for the comments and hopefully this DIY gets used and helps some folks out

[CherryRED]

I see your point on the whole trunk pop on the key already. Im just so used to using my valet key b/c it keep bulk in my pocket down. But yea... i will check on the parking light wire, im pretty sure i just tagged it at the headlight switch.

[CherryRED]

well i took a min to check and see what wire i tagged for parking lights.... but it so happens i tagged it some where else besides at the headlight switch and i really dont feel like ripping appart my car to find which wire.... So i guess just kept the write up as is, or if you can easily get to yours, maybe try disconnecting one of them and see which one is need and not needed.

[Trumpster]

Both are actually needed. One powers the passenger side of the car and the other wire powers the driver's side of the car. Instead of ripping everything apart to find a wire that powers both, I just use the 2 wires at the switch.....it's just so much easier and just as effective. Thanks for looking though! Like I said before, if anyone sees something they think should be changed or added feel free to let me know!

[pccompuman]

you can pull out the light switch and take those 2 gray parking light wires and tie them together and run it to the alarm brain, ive done this on several vw and audis without any issue.

[syaitan]

how can i connect to the indicator lights instead of the parking/head lights?

[J-tec]

good to see more detailed and fantastic DIY's out there great job bro

[sgolf2000]

these cars dont really need a roll up mod. i just use channel 4&5 for up and down. aux for trunk. and just turn on comfort closure for auto window roll up with arm. pre-wire is real clean though.

[Redrocket_81]

I have not done this yet, but am planning to. I am very glad that you have posed about that, as I have not received much help from the local shops. If anything, they have just provided discouragement, too bad they don't know who they are talking to

Thanks again!!
-Jason

[VWGolfR3]

Hi,
where does the green/black factory disarm wire get connected to?