before completing much necessary research on the subject, I made an impulse decision and decided to purchase a remote start from a local best buy. The installer seemed confident and said, "sure, it's no problem. should only take an hour or so but it would be best if you just drop the car off the night before"
I dropped the car off the night before. I didn't receive a call from him until 6 the next evening telling me it's ready. I go in, sign the paper work and grab the car. I instantly notice the dash is lit up like a christmas tree with cel's I had never seen before; ABS, ECS, air ride malfunction, AWD, brake light switch. Against my better judgement I drove the car home. Once home, I thought that maybe I could clear the codes with vcds since because maybe he did not pull the battery cable before the install and the codes were a result of this. No such luck. So I called back, made my concerns apparent, they said to bring the car back in. Dropped it off again, for another night. I met with the manager who I told I did not want anything done other than the system returned to the way it was before the install, and a full refund. If the codes were still active when I returned I would drive the car straight to the dealership. The codes were actually resolved, but I brought vcds with me this time and scanned it in the parking lot. Nothing in the dash, but the same communication cel's were still stored. I'm hoping they were simply stored from before.
I've since found a post on here about remote starters and decided to make an appointment next weekend to have abt near o'hare do the install. Hopefully it turns out better this time.
I'm thinking all of the issues resulted from either a poor connection he made or the module he used just interfered with communication between the in-car modules. I can tell you, however, all the modules are intricately dependent upon each other. If one is not working, or will otherwise not communicate, half the car stops working properly. It messed with the idle in drive at a standstill, shifting, the suspension felt like it was completely out of air (like driving a car with no shocks), it said the sport differential was disabled, among other issues. Amazing how one little install like that could make such a huge impact.
Moral of the story; I highly encourage you NOT to take your car (at least this one) to Best Buy for any auto installation. I'd have been better off doing it myself.
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