Benefit / Downside of using Remote Starter
 

Benefit would be early start during cold weather, cool (able to start from a far distance), etc...

What about disadvantages? are there any?

Does it drain your car battery a lot more... etc...

Sorry for being a noobie asking this, just graduated and found a good paying job but only able to afford a civic :alone: stupid hi-cost Vancouver.

I don't know much about cars, but hoping the RS community would know

Thanks

:whistle:

Another benefit is to auto turn on AC in the summer to cool your car
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Not really much disadvantage, the longer you run it the more gas you burn of course. Mine's set to 5 mins for warmup and it's programmed to turn off on its own once I press lock.
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I recently installed one on my vehicle, mainly because my friend got it.

It's cool for the first week or two, remote starting when walking to the car etc, but just seems pretty pointless since need to turn the key anyways.

Imo, doesn't make much a difference for me because i'm not one of those people that let their vehicle idle to warm up :heckno:

No disadvantage.

The only disadvantage of the remote starter for my manual car is that I cannot put it in gear when I am parked on a slope. I don't trust the ebrake on any of my cars so when I park on a hill I leave it in gear.....therefore no remote start. Other than that, it's a great feature I enjoy.

OP, if you daily drive your car, 2-way alarms with auto-start will do no harm to your battery at all.


uhm... i should hope it's only a matter of trust for you and not faulty e-brakes heh. plus, you don't always have to use auto-start on vehicles that are equipped with them. compustar requires the car to be put in "reservation mode" in order to have auto-start functional. ie, the e-brake is up and car is in neutral. you can park the car normally by pressing on the brakes, turning the ignition off, and then shifting into gear if you'd rather park that way.

Ya I drive daily, 10 ~ 15 min to work,

15 ~ 20 minute back to home

It does drain your battery (like any electrical device on a car),
Gas consumption will go up (obviously), your car might not need warm up to start,
Range of those things varies.. they typically suck in concrete parking lot / buildings.
Can be complicated to install in cars with the latest security features, since a lot of them need to by pass the security transponder in the key to work. When your civic gets older and things starting to fail, it will be complicated to diagnose the problem.

I think winter tires are more useful than remote start in Vancouver weather.

Yes, I know how it works :)

More or less a trust issue, you are right. Both of my cars rolled back a few times on a minor hill with the ebrake up all the way. Happened to my friend and read a bunch of other cases on s2ki. Hahah we are cursed...luckily nothing negative happened.

you guys should probably get your ebrake cable tightened or new rear brakes then. I never trust the car in gear, ive seen a friend leave his in gear and it went for a ride down a hill into a fence lol. But i obcourse still put it in gear with the ebrake on if i ever park on a hill

My buddy left his handbrake down and in gear, and started his car right into the back of a truck. Wasn't cheap =p

Actually this happened to me too. One night I was parked downhill and didn't leave it in gear but pulled the handbrake all the way up (+ a few extra clicks).

Good thing I left the wheels pointed toward the curb, because the next day my alarm went off and I found my car half a car length forward and the front right tire jammed into the curb. Maybe it's an s2k thing.

I like my remote start .... Let's the oil circulate a bit before I start driving . Idle time usually less than 2 minutes
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I guess there is no downside for remote start every time?

Increase fuel consumption. Modern cars don't really need a warm-up mechanically speaking. If you are wanting to warm the interior up on our oh so cold days, just remember that the interior does not warm up until the engine reaches normal operating temps and there is actual heat to divert to the interior. So you could be idling for 5 minutes before you feel anything heat inside.

IMO, nothing too cool about being able to start your car from a distance. Now if you could start it and command it to drive to you, that's cool :)

I had a Compustar installed by Sounds Good.
Wanted it only because I've never had it before and it seemed "cool"

Totally useless.

I thought it would help in the summer to cool down the car(AC on), but I had better results from driving down a couple blocks with the windows open, to air it out. Plus, your AC wont work to it's full potential if there's no airflow to your AC condenser.

If you really need to idle your car for more than a minute, your time could be managed better. Start up the car, pick out your favourite song, send a text, and light a smoke before going. Simple.

Again, Remote starters are completely useless in my opinion. However, if you don't have time to idle it for even a minute, (say, you're running a little late) then remote starters are great. I used mine quite a bit. I suck with leaving on time, so I always remote started my car a minute before leaving so that I wouldn't have to do any "Spirited driving" with a cold motor.

I use mine to defrost / defog the windows in the morning. Pretty useful.

with some cars u can even program the new compustar pros to roll down the windows when u disarm the car/roll up the windows when u arm it. best feature ever during summer... :fuckyea:

impress girls :alone:

Gear then ebrake.

He put it in the wrong gear.

i always turn on my car by accident at work.

I don't really like remote starters. Modern vehicles are not suppposed to be left idling for periods of time. You should start them and drive almost immediately (with a light throttle for the first minute or two). Excessive idling is a great way to build up sludge inside your engine.

As to oil circulation, your engine will only need a few seconds of running before oil pressure is up and oil is circulating properly.

Isn't illegal to idle >30secs in Vancouver anyway?

Lol I seen two hipster white chix tear this guy a new one for running his turbo timer while he went to the ATM.

It's 3 minutes but yeah I got a starter installed and I never use it except for shits and giggles.

I don't know about other brands/installers but if I were to park my car in reservation mode in neutral and throw it in gear afterwards when the engine is off and I hit the starter button, the compustar will sense that it's in gear and kill it, car will move a few inches at most.