Anyone installed a remote car starter?
 

Whats the level of difficulty on this? Best Buy can't get my car in until end of January and I might try and tackle it myself. Anyone try this?

I've heard that many of them will draw more milli-amps than most vehicles are designed for when not in use and will cause your battery to drain. They can also cause screwy hard-to-diagnose electrical problems, even when properly installed. They also can't be installed on cars that require you to have the clutch in to start.

My 2¢.

I used to install them years ago (15-16 yrs). They were the Command Start brand. IIRC there were 13 points to connect. Lets see if I can recall them all: Power, ground, ign, start, tach sens, park lights, brake sens, hood switch, cold temp switch, on/off/low temp... I can't recall more than that. I'll edit if I do. It was a handy device though, since I lived in a climate that would go down to -40 C. If I couldn't find a parking spot with a power plug I simply swithced the system to low temp and it would fire up for 20 mins at a time whenever it sensed the block temp to be -20C. I also hooked it up to a pager so that I could start it remotely from anywhere in the city if I wanted. I was younger then and was/am still in the two way radio industry so this was fun stuff for me. If I had to do it now, I would pay the kid the install fee and have it over with.

what's the point? to have the car warm up while you have breakfast?
cars don't warm up properly when idling like this.. they need to be driven, then need a load and then they warm up a lot faster...

I can see you have never lived anywhere that its -30 degrees and the car sits outside in the weather all day long! If the oil gets to a certain point the car just will not turn over, not to mention start. You come out of work, put the key in and all you hear is "click" and nothing else...

With airplanes we drain the oil out of the car and keep it warm inside. Then refill and preheat the engine, otherwise there is no way it will start. With cars its too much hassle to do this so people rig up starters to warm the engine and systems every 3-4 hours until they drive home. Other option is to put a block heater on them IF you can get to an electrical plug-in every day.

Canada and northern parts of America deal with this all the time. Otherwise you tow the vehicle into a garage and let it warm up overnight and start over again.

well sure, but a remote starter isn't fixing that, a heater would...like you say on airplanes, preheating, not "remote starting"

edit, just re-read it .. starting it every x hours to keep it warm , bit like ze germans and ze tiger tanks, ja?

Whens it's really cold out, you typically go outside and start your car then run back in the house and let the car warm up a bit before you drive it. The remote allows you to start it without leaving the house, then you go out and get in your car and drive.:) Oh yea, and everything else Joe said.

that's the part i was referring to, because cars don't warm up well just idling... that's the point i'm trying to make

No they don't warm up well by just idling, I agree. The alternative is worse though. I had this on my '84 Celica. Very reliable car and the wear and tear was the price I paid, so small a price I never noticed it.

could install a webasto instead....

http://www.webasto.com/products/grap...rt_192x132.jpg

Air cooled engines sure do.

that's nonsense, sure on a hot day they will get hot idling

but on a cold day it will take em twice as long to idle to operating temp then , then it would take em gently driving ...if not more then twice as long... it's even in the porsche manuals : do not let it warm up to idle , there's been many threads discussing this topic...