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Dealer charged me $700 for KARR alarm system

67K views 29 replies 22 participants last post by  gregersonke 
#1 ·
Bought my 2014 Mazda 3 from my local Mazda dealer. After the negotiating and handshake on the deal, I then went over to finance to sign the papers. That is where the finance person told me about the KARR Alarm system already installed in the car. She said that all cars on the lot have it installed and if I want to keep it in, its a $700 charge. If I decline they uninstall it from the car.

I said to keep it in because I didn't want to wait any longer there and dint like the idea of them pulling wires out of my brand new car. But now I feel like I got duped on this.

What do you think, is $700 too much? Should I tell them to take out and refund me? Isn't there already a factory alarm installed?
 
#3 ·
That is a scummy move for the dealer to make, have them take it out, the car already has a factory alarm built in and its very hard/almost impossible to hotwire a keyless car (and if they can do that an alarm is definitely not going to stop them). As the previous poster said, it is a sales tactic and honestly if a dealer did that to me I would turn around and go elsewhere.
 
#5 · (Edited)
Wow that is as nasty of a tactic as I have heard in quite some time. I would have gone "all in" and countered their move. You should without hesitation look them in the eye and say, "Are you seriously trying that?..I'll back out of the car deal altogether right now unless you include the alarm. If not I go get a Honda and spin a good story to the local news stations". Those jerks turn what should be fun into a horrible experience out of greed. So slap them in the face with some of their own medicine or let them lose a car sale altogether. I'm very sorry they did that to you. They all play "the game" but that was very shady of them.

A year ago when I bought mine the "reputable" Beasley Mazda dealership here tried some crap with me and more recently (actually currently) giving a member here from Austin the same treatment only a bit nastier. Nothing along the lines you just went through. I had to threaten to walk twice, but at escalated moments. I'm keeping this car as long as I can lol.
 
#8 ·
Wow that is wrong on so many levels. Not sure how you can get your money back, but you should at least put up a fight. An alarm is installed from the factory. Is your Karr system St least a 2way?
 
#13 ·
I'd bet dollars to donuts they don't actually have it installed until after they get the "ok" to keep it. The line about "taking it out if customer doesn't want it" sounds like absolute bullshit (by bullshit I mean blatant lie). I highly doubt they do work on all of their new cars without it being a guaranteed sale, not to mention that would effectively make these cars impossible to trade with other dealers in the area. It's just a scummy tactic they do to all their new models to boost margins, especially since margins on new cars are pretty thin to begin with.

I'd also bet you that they try to charge you for taking it out, too. Sure, we'll give you your $700 back, less $300 to take it out.

I wonder how much they pay for these systems before install...
 
#10 ·
My wife's 07 Honda had this (along with every other car at that dealer), but at least in that case it wasn't duplicating features already on the car. I still wouldn't have paid for it, because to this day you can't get good information about what the thing actually does. I would insist on it being removed.

DJ
 
#14 ·
Just because I was curious, I Googled "Karr alarm" to see what kind of system it was.

The first two full pages of Google hits were people complaining about dealers pre-installing these systems on new cars and springing it on them at the last minute. From all different types of cars and whatnot. I have a feeling this company exists solely for that purpose. Fascinating.
 
#17 · (Edited)
I know a dealer that put lo-jacks into the cars that were in-house financed just so he could get the car back if you didn't make the payments... which is smart on his part but to sell it as a add-on you NEED is just b.s. It doesn't hurt to go back and ask for it to be removed. If they give you flak always go to the top (sales mgr. or even the owner) and be polite about it.
 
#18 ·
The dealer I purchased my 3 through had them installed on most of the cars due to some issues with vagrants. When I bought mine they included it for free due a requirement of the financing bank I went through. All the system does is adds a sound/shock sensor incase someone breaks a window, adds a blue light under the dash and honks the horn for lock/unlock chirps and when the alarm goes off...but keeps the original beeps too. You can disable the horn for the lock/unlock sound though. Not worth $700 if you have to pay for it. Another positive note is that it doesn't create any additional key fobs so you can just use the car/fob like usual.
 
#19 ·
Wow, you got took! I would have said, never mind and gone somewhere else. My dealer made the experience super fun. I got there, they let me drive it by myself. Then again with salesman (who was cool). I said, "so, how long is the test drive?, He said, As long as you want?" He said lets go to your friends, your families houses and show off your new car. Haha. But, there was no pressure, I shopped around for months looking at a lancer, scion, Honda, and Subaru. By far, Mazda's dealer was best experience.

Too bad they did that to u bud :no:
 
#23 ·
This is extremely shady of the dealership. I would absolutely get my money back. After that, I would make sure I never bright my vehicle to them for anything - service would likely pull similar scams. And even after they took it out, I would still give a poor review and recommend friends/family buy elsewhere.

This is even worse than the attempt at selling the $800 electronic rust proofing modules - and I thought nothing would too that!

Good luck!
 
#27 ·
I am about to remove one of these from my car that I leased this past week.

The blue light (mine is now covered) has a blue plastic button on the side, the button is used for programming the remotes and for placing the system in to "valet" mode.

There are likely two shock sensor units in the car, one in the controller and one mounted under a trim panel towards the rear section of the cabin. The controller may have a shock sensor as there is a blue colored dial for sensitivity on the opposite side. I followed the wiring from the light/button to the controller unit and found the controller unit has speaker cables running from it. The two speaker cables, a single and a double, running along and under the driver side scuff panels and through the driver side rear tire house panel (the hatch area). This is where I am pretty certain the additional shock sensor has been installed.

The controller unit (brain) is connected to various wires at the harnesses at the drivers side kick panel. One wire under the dash that is green (ignition) has been cut and connected to two orange cables that go into the controller (kill start).

I am going to remove everything this weekend following the information on trim removal in the service manual.

The controller unit I found because it fell on the floor while driving, I was rather curious about the KARR system since the dealer left the hardware installed. (It must not be worth much if they can eat the cost of leaving it in a car unactivated and might cost more$ money to remove it than its actually worth.)

My car is manual and I guess the installer forgot to secure it with a zip-tie or however they lock it down from moving around. (Rather dangerous to leave something like this unsecured next to the clutch and brake as it could obstruct the ability to stop the vehicle.)

I leased my car from John Hine Mazda of San Diego. They wanted $599 to activate the KARR Security System. I declined for two reasons, I know the car has a factory system and because I have insurance with more than enough coverage.

I recently asked the dealer to remove the module but they want $ to do that. They offered to securely mount it for no cost but need to charge me for removal. Since the controller fell I have had two instances of my car not wanting to start, pretty certain it has caused a short to those green wires because if I wiggle the controller unit lightly the car starts up right after.

Control Unit Top


Control Unit Bottom


Control Unit unsecured hanging


Cable from Control unit
 
#29 ·
wow this still happening today 2018 ,i just bought a 2015 certified used honda from a well known Honda dealership ,where i my purchased my first Honda in 1989, so that's why i went back.
they got me for 1289.00 for the Karr alarm system that doesn't even work right right and didn't have some of the features that the finance guy told me it had.
i am fighting right now with them to refund me because it doesn't work right , the app keeps foreclosing, and for telling me it had features it doesn't have.
 
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