StevenB1962
Junior Member
Limited 5th Generation 4runner deactivate Automatic Arming of Theft Deterrent System when camping
I wanted to share my solution to this in case it helped some other person. One of the issues with the alarm system of the 4Runner is that it automatically arms when you lock the door after 30 seconds.
This is an issue if you are sitting in the car for an extended period. The door will auto lock and Alarm will Auto Arm. If you do not unlock the door with the FOB, the alarm will go off when you open the door. For me personally, it became a problem when I was road tripping and maybe camping in the vehicle and opening the door without disarming it….. so you set off the alarm somewhere at 6 o’clock in the morning maybe with other campers around.
Anyway, here’s my solution to this because I did not find any other solutions online.
My vehicle is a 2016 Limited. First…it doesn’t have any kind of programming interface where you can change the alarm functions. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist but tons of research I could not find any way to stop the alarm from Auto Arming.
The workaround is this. The alarm will not arm if the the Front Hood is Open. But the car will let you lock the doors to the car.
This is the only scenario after a lot of experimentation where the car can actually still be locked if something is “open”. If you leave the door open, it will warning beep at you and not let you lock the car.
I noticed a lot of banter online that some people think that there is not a latch sensor on the hood latch. They’re absolutely is one. It’s very hard to see and you have to just about take the latch off to see it. The sensor is in the latch. The wire is hiding up behind the radiator rail.
The union plug for the hood latch sensor is on the vertical post behind the latch itself.
My workaround is this. The system is looking for a “normally open” circuit to arm the alarm. In other words, it needs to have no continuity and not to make a circuit for the vehicle to think the hood is shut . The switch in the latch creates the circuit “open” when the hood is closed . (I don’t know about other models of Toyotas or even other 4runners… I saw some guy that had a video about a Highlander hood latch and he said that you needed to jumper it to make it “closed” if your latch was defective to get the alarm to arm. That was not the case with my 4runner. If you just unplug the hood sensor. It will arm everytime because the circuit is open and that’s what the Alarm is looking for. It doesn’t solve the problem of stopping the Alarm from arming automatically.
Anyway, I ran a wire up to my dash from the plug (unplugged) to a switch and made it so when you flip the switch it makes a continuity closed circuit… mimicking the hood is open when it’s not.
In the on “I” position the alarm will not arm and the doors will not time out to an Auto-lock….but the doors will lock manually with the button or the FOB. You can open the door anytime after the fact without setting off the alarm because it never automatically arms.
Anyway, I used a toggle rocker switch because I wanted to have a visual on/off instead of a push button. The only difference is that I is on (closed circuit) which means that the alarm will not arm. And O means that it will operate as normal, but you do loose the alarm on the hood latch…. Which I pretty much decided, didn’t seem to matter that much because someone would smash the window to open it anyway. Good Luck Campers
I wanted to share my solution to this in case it helped some other person. One of the issues with the alarm system of the 4Runner is that it automatically arms when you lock the door after 30 seconds.
This is an issue if you are sitting in the car for an extended period. The door will auto lock and Alarm will Auto Arm. If you do not unlock the door with the FOB, the alarm will go off when you open the door. For me personally, it became a problem when I was road tripping and maybe camping in the vehicle and opening the door without disarming it….. so you set off the alarm somewhere at 6 o’clock in the morning maybe with other campers around.
Anyway, here’s my solution to this because I did not find any other solutions online.
My vehicle is a 2016 Limited. First…it doesn’t have any kind of programming interface where you can change the alarm functions. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist but tons of research I could not find any way to stop the alarm from Auto Arming.
The workaround is this. The alarm will not arm if the the Front Hood is Open. But the car will let you lock the doors to the car.
This is the only scenario after a lot of experimentation where the car can actually still be locked if something is “open”. If you leave the door open, it will warning beep at you and not let you lock the car.
I noticed a lot of banter online that some people think that there is not a latch sensor on the hood latch. They’re absolutely is one. It’s very hard to see and you have to just about take the latch off to see it. The sensor is in the latch. The wire is hiding up behind the radiator rail.
The union plug for the hood latch sensor is on the vertical post behind the latch itself.
My workaround is this. The system is looking for a “normally open” circuit to arm the alarm. In other words, it needs to have no continuity and not to make a circuit for the vehicle to think the hood is shut . The switch in the latch creates the circuit “open” when the hood is closed . (I don’t know about other models of Toyotas or even other 4runners… I saw some guy that had a video about a Highlander hood latch and he said that you needed to jumper it to make it “closed” if your latch was defective to get the alarm to arm. That was not the case with my 4runner. If you just unplug the hood sensor. It will arm everytime because the circuit is open and that’s what the Alarm is looking for. It doesn’t solve the problem of stopping the Alarm from arming automatically.
Anyway, I ran a wire up to my dash from the plug (unplugged) to a switch and made it so when you flip the switch it makes a continuity closed circuit… mimicking the hood is open when it’s not.
In the on “I” position the alarm will not arm and the doors will not time out to an Auto-lock….but the doors will lock manually with the button or the FOB. You can open the door anytime after the fact without setting off the alarm because it never automatically arms.
Anyway, I used a toggle rocker switch because I wanted to have a visual on/off instead of a push button. The only difference is that I is on (closed circuit) which means that the alarm will not arm. And O means that it will operate as normal, but you do loose the alarm on the hood latch…. Which I pretty much decided, didn’t seem to matter that much because someone would smash the window to open it anyway. Good Luck Campers
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