2005 Factory alarm draining battery. How to remove?

Hello. My 2005 prerunner doublecab keeps having the battery drained and I'm 90%+ sure it's the alarm that came installed new from dealer. I need to remove it. I searched the internet and also this forum but haven't found a method to remove it.

It's the alarm that has a vibration detector and uses the trucks horn.

When I drove the truck regularly it wasn't an issue, but now I drive it seldomly and have had totally dead batteries after a month or so of not starting it.

Any experience or assistance would be greatly appreciated.

 

Before you do that, have you measured the parasitic draw? If your handy with a DMM that can measure current leakage in the mA range I would do that first, disconnect the negative lead and place the ammeter in series with the negative lead and negative battery post, truck off of course. Wait 10 minutes or so to see the current reading then. 20-40mA is typical and over 50mA is not good.

Not running the truck for over a month a number of times will weaken the battery all by itself, and that may be your real problem. especially if the battery is a couple years old or more.

 

If truck sitting that long definitely disconnect the negative terminal. You should see how many people have dead batteries when we get back from sea for just 2-3 weeks haha. I disconnected my negative terminal, went to Japan for 3 years, came back and she started right up!

 

I don't have a DMM device. I did take it to dealer for inspection in June and bought a new Toyota battery at that time. I asked them to check the draw as I've had this trouble for a few years now, and they said the draw wasn't an issue.

I'm trickle charging the battery now and when I pop it back in I'll just leave negative terminal disconnected based on the feedback.

I should run it more cuz I've also just noticed it tried to stall on me while idling, the idle went real low rpm and I had to hit the throttle to keep it running. I ran it at 2K rpm for a few minutes and it was ok. Pretty sure the gas is over a year old ....

It got 205K miles. I refuse to get rid of it.

Thanks for feedbacks!

 

Before you accuse a suspect, do your homework as you may not fix the problem. Haste makes waste, especially while troubleshooting electrical gremlins.

 

Most alarms that are called factory alarms in Tacomas are not factory alarms but are installed by subcontractors at the dealership when the vehicle was new. 90% of those alarms are Karr (brand name) alarms. They're black boxes about an inch thick and about 3"x4". Most are installed in the driver's kick panel however some are installed under the driver's side of the dashboard. Lay on your back on the driver's floorboard and look up, you're looking for the black box, if you don't see it almost immediately then it's probably behind the driver's kick panel.

When you find the black box simply unplug all of its plugs from the box. Their starter kills are wired normally closed so you won't have any issues with it unplugged.

If it's a lot smaller than 3"x4" it's not the alarms brain it's the shock sensor so unplugging the shock sensor won't accomplish what you want. You can follow the wires coming out of the shock sensor to find the alarms brain.

A couple pictures of Karr alarm brains.

 

Fun fact: dealerships would pay anywhere from $68 to $175 (in 2005) for one installed (parts and labor), they would have the entire new lot done, then in the finance department they'd try to sell it to you for $750-$1,200 with the pitch that it's only a few dollars a month or pennies a day and that it's the only Toyota approved alarm system. If you still declined the alarm sale they'd pull it out of your new car and would install it when the next batch of new cars showed up.