Originally Posted by thennen

I'm with you on the safety concerns. Mine's a little different.

My son's 2009 Corolla had an aftermarket remote start already installed by the PO when he bought it used. Over the course of his first 3 months of ownership, the voltage regulator failed in the alternator, the car began making a noise upon starting that initially sounded like oil starvation (turned out to be the starter not fully disengaging), and the battery kept draining and eventually failed. While troubleshooting the noise, there were several instances where the starter stayed engaged when I released the key. I checked the current flow at the battery and discovered a 150mA parasitic drain with everything off. While checking this, the meter pegged a couple of times, and then the fuse blew in my meter. I think maybe the remote start was trying to engage. I took the steering column apart and located the two 30A fuses for the remote start. Removed those and the starter noise got better but didn't go away completely. Finally had the starter replaced, all perfect now.

I've always been suspicious of what type of failure a remote start would have, and now I know of one type. I believe this one took out the starter, maybe over-worked the regulator, and wore out the previous battery. I've decided I won't ever get one myself.