ProStart Starters

[Vella's Alero]

Well, I might staqrt this off with a bit of a rant...

I got a prostart CT-3471 2-way Car starter for Christmas from Canadian Tire. I have wanted a starter for the car because of the winter weather (which this year has been surprisingly warmish). My dad decided that we will instal it together because we have installed Bulldog Security and Starter systems in 4 of our current and previous cars (89 sunbird, 91sunbird, 95 lumina APV, 99 Saturn SL1) All worked without a hitch. This however was the first one that needed a bypass module. I went and bought the bypass from canadian Tire and we started to install it.

First off, there were stickers in the manual covering up updates to the wiring which we thought was kind of odd, and the wiring diagrams and colouring was still wrong. We called customer service and they gave us a completely different colour scheme so we went with that. We got it all hooked up and it turned on fine with the key, the door locks worked on the remote and the trunk release worked. But the thing would not start. It would crank and crank but not start.

We called up the customer service again and they were extremely rude and basically called my father an idiot because he has a somewhat heavy accent and the call centre being in montreal, they had problems talking to each other. So I took over from there because they could understand me better and also I do speak french as a third language. We were on the phone with them for about 20 minutes trying different things and nothing seemed to work. They told us finally that it might be the starter box itself.

We took the book to CT and they exchanged it with another one. While I was there I checked everything to make sure it was the same type cause the box looked a little different but it seemed ok. When we went to hook it back up again, the same thing happened. We called the CS number again and this time they hung up on me after 15 minutes of trying different things and just telling me to get a pro to do it because I apparently didn't know how to do anything. We called right back talked to a manager and he helped us along for about another 30-45 minutes. nothing was working. At this point I asked him about another odd occurance because it kept saying to push a button on the antenna at a certain point in the programming to get it to recogonise the remote, but there was no button there. He told us that that was for an older model of this model and to just keep using the button that we had been using on the box.

This is now 3rd week of January and nothing is coming of this damn thing. We decided to throw in the towel and take it to an installer. I took it to a place here called Base Electronics,and they took it in for about 3 hours and nothing worked. When I went to pick it up, he said that the wiring was al wrong adn the customer service line that he called kept giving him the wrong wires and diagrams too so it wasn't just us. He basically took it all out and told me to schedule another appointment so he can start it from scratch. I went back the next week and he spent another 3 hours working on the car and he still couldnt get it to work. He replace the bypass module with a ersistor pack thinking that that was the problem but that didn't help either.

Eventually he told me that it is not picking up the tach threshold and needs to crank a little longer for my car and this box can't be programmed for it. He told me that it can't be installed on the car because of it. He didn't charge me anything for the 6 hours of labour he put into it or even what he usually charges for the resistor pack he made for me. I decided to take it back to CT and get my money back and just have one installed from BE. It took a lot of work and some angry phone calls later for them to take it back but eventually they did (this is for another rant). I took the car back to BE and had them put in a Viper Starter system into my car and now it works perfectly. Also at the shop they only charged me $100 for the starter, 150 for install and still didn't charge me for the resistor pack which was awesome.

When I did some checking on why the prostart didn't work in the car, I found out that they sometimes rebrand the boxes with a newer model number and sell it as a new product even though it might be a few years old. I got a friend to get me some numbers off one of the boxes at CT and when I checked them out, I found out that that same number, ox shape, design, and manual was from a starter sold 6 years ago!

All in all, the moral of the story is don't buy Prostart equipment for Aleros or any car in general because they are junk and refurbished/older models rebranded and sold as new.

Ease of installation - 1/10 - Manual was wrong, online diagrams were wrong
Ease of use - 3/10 - Doors and trunk actually worked
Customer Service - 2/10 - Manager was the only saving grace
Overall - 2/10 - Nothing but headaches really

I do not recommend this product or any type of prostart product at all to anyone just based on my experiences with the product, their customer service, and the service at Canadian Tire throughout this ordeal.

[cherrington17]

so.. did you have the resistor pack for the first one?

[Vella's Alero]

Yep, he tried installing the Prostart starter with both the bypass and the resistor pack and it still didnt work. I also for got to mention that we had returned the bypass as well cause we thought that might not be working but it wasn't it either.

[CBLOHM3400]

i installed a bulldog car started on mine with the bypass module everything works
only problem that i had was when i started the car in the middle of the day and the car starter was wiring to the parking lights would cause the headlights to come on and throw a svs light
so i unhooked the parking light wired and solved the problem
go with a bull dog they are alot eaiser to wire up

[cherrington17]

ok. just wanted to be sure you weren't overlooking a very simply obvious answer to why it didn't work.

in that case.. i accept your complaint.

[Vella's Alero]

Cherri - Lol...that was one thing we definitely looked at especially considering that this was the first car we've had with passlock or any type of factory security.

CBL - I wish we could still get Bulldgo security here in Canada. Wal-MArt used to sell them and that's what we installed into our other cars (like stated above) but when my parents and I went to look for them they told us that they don't carry them anymore.

This Viper one (x4701 i believe or something like that) is working really well though and has excellent range so I'm not complaining anymore that's for sure!

[lonnie]

Thanks for the heads up.