Ok I know that was a sneaky topic but it got you reading, right? :smile: Any way, I asked my dealer how much it was to have the alarm system programmed if I installed it myself. He told me, and also said that if I installed it that it would void the warranty if something went wrong with it. Does that seem right? I mean I have heard that the installation is pretty straight forward and takes about 30 minutes to an hour but I don’t want to pay the dealer $200 for something that seems easy enough for me to do myself. What do you guys think?

 

The installation is extremely easy to do and should only take about 15 minutes to half an hour. I think the void warranty is just a ploy by the dealership to get you to have them install the unit. It is pretty much plug and play and I can't see how you can ruin the car or the alarm by installing it yourself. Besides, they would have to prove that you installed it yourself. 1 year down the road they will never remember who installed the unit. A lot of cars get aftermarket parts installed by dealers that aren't the ones performing the service, especially during the intial purchase period. I would say install it yourself and save the money.

 

Some dealers will not consider a warranty on a factory alarm system (or any other OEM items) installed by the owner. Some will. It all depends on their own unwritten policies. Many do it as a ploy to have you let the dealer install the items, whereas the factory most likely has a policy of not extending the waranty to owner installed factory items. A 'good' dealer will consider the waranty good on items like the alarm you install yourself because the "factory" has no way of knowing the origin of the installation, it just knows which parts are theirs and which are aftermarket.

 

Is this new for all 04 MINI's - pre-wired for factory alarm?

 

>>Is this new for all 04 MINI's - pre-wired for factory alarm?

All 04s, most if not all 03s, I'm not sure when it started.

 

I think it's done for a reason, which is to cover their ****. Whether someone installing it outside of the dealer is compotant or not, there's always that "what if" scenario. If wires were to be crossed for example, or even the smallest thing to go wrong could reek havoc on the rest of the car's electronics, computer, etc. Not sure what you'd be dealing with in regards to the setup, I'm not familiar with what needs to be done, but it's there to stop people from screwing up the car, and then handing it to the dealership and saying, "Hey, my MINI's is screwed up,.....fix, and don't charge me a thing." Whether it's as easy as you all say, they put that rule into play for all their stuff outside of alarm systems. Eg., JCW kit, etc. Whether you know your stuff or not, they don't want you messing with anything. The techs are payed to go to training to do this all for us. I don't think they're going to draw the line anywhere, they're going to cover that rule straight across, no matter how easy or hard something is to install. Just my couple of pennies worth.
Cheers,

 

So what is the easiest senario to have the factory alarm installed?

Buy the kit from Classic Mini at a discount and then hand it over to the
dealer to install it? :???: makes sense, I guess...

 

I've installed three BMW alarms which is prewired as well. The MINI one should be a piece of cake to install. I bet they are the same parts.

 

The alarm is VERY easy to install: LINK

There's literally no way to screw it up so the warrantee should never be affected.

Note to 04 owners looking at the above page: that is the 03 alarm. The 04 version differs in that the tilt sensor is built into the siren unit in the engine bay instead of being a separate unit in the boot cavity.