Aflarm...?
 

Yes, I know there is no f in alarm. That might be the problem.

My clearly "rolling project" 940 arrived earlier. A few curious quirks, a couple of concerns, and much curiosity.

Not the least of which is... Do these cars have an alarm as standard? Because mine came with no fobs, and an aftermarket looking flashing led thing stuck on an A post.

Central locking works fine, but I want an alarm and the convenience of remote locking. And I'd prefer not to have the inconvenience of a dormant factory fit system waking up when I'm god knows where!

That "aftermarket looking flashing LED thing stuck to the A pillar" is in fact a Volvo factory alarm! :err:

I think it's Guard1 but might well be wrong, i belive you can get aftermarket fobs or even genuine ones at a reasonable price and program them to the alarm but there are several other people who know the system better than me. It would help them enormously if you could give details of the MY, exact model and year so they could narrow down which you're most likely to have.

It could very well be, 'L.S.'. On the other hand, it could equally well be something that someone has added to MIMIC an alarm. My '91(H) 944 GLE was not equipped with an alarm, so, on the advice of the supplying dealer, I aaked him to fit a flashing LED for just that purpose. Even then, while car alarms were largely ignored, the reasoning went that the implied presence of one might just be enough to cause a casual, opportunist thief to move on to a 'softer' target.

Regards, John.

If the LED thing on the A-pilar is triangular with a button on it then you almost certainly have a Volvoguard 1 alarm as others have suggested. They were fitted to cars up to about 1995. Either factory or as a dealer option.

The Volvo fobs looked like the attached picture. They are quite rare now but crop up on eBay periodically.

There are several things that fail and cause people to abandon the system. Inside the fob is a 1MHz ceramic resonator which comes detached from the PCB. This results in the fob not working and the LED not illuminating. The fob can be easily opened and the component either re-soldered or replaced. Inside the triangular thing in the car is a small blue Murata variable capacitor which tunes the receiving circuit. This goes out of spec. Some have effected permanent repairs just by adjusting this capacitor. However, I found it had become unstable and wouldn’t stay in tune so I replaced it in my 1994 Wentworth. Relatively easy to do in situ if you’re a bit nifty with a soldering iron.

More detail on fob repair.

https://www.volvoforums.org.uk/showthread.php?t=253183

More detail on receiver repair.

https://www.volvoforums.org.uk/showthread.php?t=200312

Triangular with a button?

I just grabbed pics, and... It sounds like it then!

My concern is not so much how to get it working as how to stop it working when I don't have any fob plipper thing to turn it off. Although if it could be made to work again it might save me installing something else.

If your car volvo guard 1 fuse is under bonnet around suspension strut area passenger6 side or above your knee drivers side .see other posts by me

Check out Hawk alarms. The remotes on our S70 both fell to bits, so I got a Hawk central locking module. It was a doddle to fit, and has worked perfectly for years now. They also do full alarm systems. The company were incredibly helpful and were even able to supply a wiring diagram for the S70.

https://www.hawkcaralarm.com

Cheers

Jack

I seem to remember getting one of their alarms ages ago, it had the features I wanted but you couldn't soft chirp the siren when arming/ dearming. It's still in a box somewhere, I went with a Hornet or Viper thing cheap off Feebay in the end.

Irritatingly, I have another Hornet or whatever, sold as "Avital", somewhere. Bought for a project it never got fitted to, and trying to think where it got hidden. Can order them from the US for about £70 all in, allegedly, and they've got pretty much everything I'm after, inc soft chirpy. But I'm reluctant to buy something I should already have!

If you get the Volvoguard 1 working it has a configurable option for an audible acknowledgment. They generally only have horns rather a siren though. This is good because the backup batteries in Volvo sirens eventually decay and destroy the siren. The basic horns don’t have this weakness.