'99 Explorer alarm and dead battery

[john112deere]

My grandmother has a '99 Explorer. It's been sitting a while- I'm not quite sure how long, but I know I drove it last July. Battery's dead, so my uncle put it on a trickle charger the other day.

The alarm was trying to go off (horn at 2 amps)...whoops. Disconnected the battery (like we probably should have in the first place) and put the charger back to it. Diagnosis: battery is toast.


What's gonna happen when (if) we get a good battery and put it in, though? Is the alarm going to go off as soon as we hook the thing up? Any way to avoid waking up the whole neighborhood?


AFAIK it's got whatever the standard factory security crap is. '99 XLT with the keyless pad on the door and PATS key, anyway...I've never seen a remote but I'd assume it had one at some point in time. No evidence of aftermarket stuff.

 

[Austin]

Had this issue on my Grand Cherokee when I got it... Just pop the key into the door or ignition and turn it. Should... and I say should... turn it off.

 

[john112deere]

Before I put the battery in?

Or do I have to wait until the alarm goes off, then put the key in and turn it off?

 

[5.0Flareside]

exactly... just put the key in the ignition and turn it over to run position as soon as the alarm starts going off, thats the way we do it on the exploder when we forget and lock it and when we lock it it automatically sets the alarm... just our drivers side door doesnt fully lock unless manually forced...

 

[Austin]

Before I put the battery in?

Or do I have to wait until the alarm goes off, then put the key in and turn it off?

Wait until it goes off, just like Chris said.

 

[john112deere]

OK...but here's the thing: the Explorer is parked in my grandparents garage.

I would very much like to put a battery in it without the alarm going off. At all.

Maybe I'm nuts, but that doesn't seem like such an unreasonable thing to want to do.

 

[Austin]

I see... I don't know of a way of preventing it from going off, maybe some of the other guys do.

 

[5.0Flareside]

hmm.. you may be able to put the key in and into the run position without the battery in and then hook up the battery... i really dont know of anyway for certain though...

 

[john112deere]

Thought of that but worried about how the computer would respond to being "live" when the battery was initially hooked up.

 

[Mil1ion]

Disconnect the horn wire