Hi gang,

I need some help/advice. I have a '04 coupe with only 18K on it. Bought it a year ago, and the warranty expired last month (of course).

First problem happened on Saturday. Wife drove car, and exterior light failure warning came on. Blinkers wouldn't work. I found a fried fuse in the inside panel and replaced, which seemingly fixed the issue. Drove it Sunday morning for a couple of errands no issue.

This morning, I went to take my son to school and the unlock button on the fob wouldn't work. In fact, none of the buttons worked. So I thought I could just unlock the driver's side door manually with the key and be on my way.... ALARM! Holy crud!

I managed to pop the hood and went to the fuse box underneath. The manual said fuse 9 was the alarm. I tried to pull it and the alarm went back on again. Ouch! The frickin' speaker must be right there.

So then I yanked fuse 26 (20 amp) which is supposed to be for central locking. The flashing warning lights went off. So I was able to open the car door without the alarm going off. I then tried to start the car....but it wouldn't start. It tried at first, then acted like the battery died.

Couldn't spend anymore time on it; had to have wife drive kids to school and me to work.

So here's my question for when I get back home tonight.

It's possible I left the interior light on for more than a day. If the battery was just about dead, could it cause the remote to not open the doors and disable the alarm? I remember playing with the inside light when I was working on the issue on Saturday, as I was making sure everything else electrical was working. I, possibly, just never turned it off, and not driving it at night, never noticed it was on (it's not terribly bright....nor, apparently, am I....)

Any ideas?

Tonight I plan to brave the alarm once more, yank fuse 26, and try jumping the battery to see if I can get it to start and charge. Then see if the fob works. The battery is original, so perhaps it's dying. But the question still applies: could a dead battery cause the fob not to work, or could this be indicative of a more expensive electrical issue?

Thanks in advance for the replies.

EDIT: Also, is there a quick way to disable that damn alarm horn, just until I get all this figured out? Fuse 9 sure didn't do it.....

Mark