Read everything you need to know about installing a remote car starter in a manual transmission vehicle.

These days, we always aim for convenience. Whether it’s in terms of education, lifestyle or automotive, more conducive ways of living are being preferred lately.

One of the areas in which convenience is highly appreciated. Thanks to auto manufacturers, the dream to make driving and auto management is becoming easier than ever.

You can still use remote car starters to amp your ride

You can get access to the best vehicles with features that are both convenient and smart. But you will, of course, need a good amount of cash.

If you don’t, you can still use remote car starters to amp your ride. But what if your vehicle is a manual transmission? Can remote car starters work on your vehicle? Or should you just ditch these OEM options and carry on driving?

Read everything you need to know about installing a remote car starter in a manual transmission vehicle in this article from Philcarnews.com.

1. Remote car starters in vehicles

Remote car starters are simple devices at first look. But installing them safely in a vehicle with manual transmission can present some problems.

This is because most of the manual transmissions in vehicles utilize mechanical shift linkage. On top of that, there is also no sensor that taps in to determine if the vehicle’s transmission is neutral. 

Remote car starters are simple devices at first look

Without that particular piece, the remote starter wouldn’t be able to engage with your vehicle’s transmission gear. This could lead to disastrous effects.

But to answer the question, yes - it is possible to wire a remote starter into a manual transmission car. In fact, there are tons of ways one can do the job. The blunt part is that not all of these ways are safe.

2. The problem with manual transmission and remote car starters

Once you install an automatic starter in a car with automatic transmission, it inspects two factors before starting the car engine. The first one is that the transmission should be in “park.”

The second is that you need to have the parking brake onset. There are installations, however that checks only if the transmission is set on “park”.

The biggest problem when it comes to vehicles with manual transmission is that there’s no park. It only has neutral which acts similar to the park. But this transmission can still freewheel; there’s no parking pawl. If you’re not familiar with this, it’s the part in automatic transmissions that’s able to lock the transmission into place.

The biggest problem when it comes to vehicles with manual transmission is that there’s no park

>>> Related: Types of Cars Based on Transmission

The other problem is that if you start your vehicle that has a manual transmission, you first need to push the clutch pedal down. This is way easier to do rather than making sure you kept the transmission on neutral.

But this, of course, will remain to be a hurdle that you won’t find in vehicles with automatic transmission.

3. How can you make remote starters work with vehicles with a manual transmission?

We earlier said that you can’t start your manual transmission vehicle without having to depress the clutch pedal. This is because of the part called the clutch interlock switch. This is the switch that’s responsible for preventing the engine from actually starting.

This is not until the clutch pedal is fully engaged, of course. So judging from that, you can tell that bypassing it will be an easy job. The trouble here is that the vehicle’s clutch interlock acts as a safety feature.

The other problem is that if you start your vehicle that has a manual transmission, you first need to push the clutch pedal down

This works by preventing the driver from starting the car while the transmission is in gear. The interlock also helps prevent children from wheeling the car accident to traffic or buildings.

If you remove this safety feature, you are letting off the possibility of anyone starting the engine even with the transmission in gear.

Although it’s nearly impossible for a vehicle to start under those types of conditions. It could still, however, lurch forward or backward.

This would depend on the gear that you left your car in. Even if you did set the parking brake on, your vehicle could still hit another while under the mentioned circumstances. 

There are three things that your remote car starter needs to do if you’ll install it in a manual transmission vehicle

While without setting the parking brake, your vehicle could roll and hit a building, pedestrians or other vehicles.

With that said, there are three things that your remote car starter needs to do if you’ll install it in a manual transmission vehicle. These are the following:

• The clutch interlocks need to be disabled.
• The transmission should be in neutral.
• The parking brake should be activated.

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4. Solving the manual transmission and remote car starter problem

The best issue you can start with is by taking care of the vehicle’s clutch interlock switch. For you to bypass the need for another person to depress the clutch, your remote car starter needs to be wired to the clutch interlock.

Start by pressing the remote’s start button. Once you do, the device will disable your car’s interlock before it activates the starter.

The device can be also wired into the exact same parking brake switch using the same process. The right switch should be the one responsible for turning on the parking brake on the dashboard. If this switch isn’t activated, your remote car starter can be turned off entirely.

When it comes to making sure the vehicle’s transmission is in neutral, it can be a bit more complicated. But there have definitely been a lot of solutions over the years. The blunt part is that a lot of these solutions were too complicated. Others, on the other hand, have higher chances of failure than success.

The best issue you can start with is by taking care of the vehicle’s clutch interlock switch

The good news is that a lot of the current remote car starters in the market took years to perfect before it reaches the public.

There are a few ways in which you can make sure that your vehicle is in neutral gear. But probably one of the safest in the multistep solution that makes it impossible to start the vehicle accidentally. This is even if it is in gear.

This involves wiring your remote car starter in a way that it needs to be left on neutral when you want to park. To do this, your remote car starter changes the way your vehicle shuts down.