Anyone know what's going on with Auto Innovatio?

Bought a bunch of stuff from them and they've "disappeared". After sending them money, they stopped responding to my emails and calls.

Also, I found out their US manager Sean Kirkland has quit so I'm dealing with some guy in Korea now... wtf?

Anyone have similar experiences with them? I researched before buying and they seemed to have good rep on the forums. BTW, I sent over $2000 USD to them

 

I would love a proximity sensing system but the range on this alarm is a joke. 30-40 feet??? I like being able to start my car without walking outside so I'll stick to my Viper 5901 with a 1 mile range.

Plus there's no telling how long these last. I know my DEI system has a good warranty and will not let me down.

 

Don't know what happened to Auto-innovatio seemed to be going downhill when they dropped their vendor status.

Sucks because I do like their products.

I don't know why it says 30-40 feet I have started my car from over 200+ feet away. I know nothing near a mile but I don't think 30-40 is accurate.

I'm 8months with my ST800 and I have no complaints. It actually saved my car from and accident on (because of me being in a rush). You can not shut the car off without the parking brake up and one day I was late to work and was rushing and forgot and it didn't let me shut the car off. I know i'm an idiot but it still stopped me from being an idiot with a smashed up car.

 

Greetings folks,

I have a ST800 installed in my G35MT coupe. I've had it for probably 9 months now. Here's what I think.


PROS:

IMHO, the best part about the ST800 is that in the dead of winter (if you've set a remote start reservation...AND...as long as it's not been more than 48 hours), it will reliably remote start the car. It's really nice to be able to go out to a warm, mostly defrosted car...as funny as that sounds today, in the middle of May.

MORE PROS:

I can't think of any...but I'll come back to PROS if any occur to me.


CONS:

1. Support - Support from DOWON-TEC (Sean in Arizona and Jeremy in Korea(?)) is non-existent. I read that Sean quit...and I have first-hand experience with Jeremy promising support, but never following through on his promises.

Don't get me wrong, these are not bad people...in fact Sean by many accounts has bent over backwards to help LOTS of people out with installs. On the other hand, Jeremy made repeated promises to answer my questions and to provide additional hardware, but he NEVER delivered...and he offered one excuse after another as to why he didn't deliver...and kept promising he'd deliver. In the end, he didn't deliver anything. No answers. No product. Nothing.2. Documentation - On a scale of one to ten, with ten being "outstanding," the ST800 user manual is a solid "double zero." The installation manual is actually not terrible...but the user manual is simply atrocious. It is riddled with extremely poor English and full-out erroneous (or at best misleading) statements. Jeremy (and Sean) repeatedly promised that they were in the process of re-writing it, but it never materialized.

Taken together (the horrendously-written manuals and the no-real-support SOP) create a particularly problematic challenge for the DIY installer, the end user...and even for the professional installer.

My installer, a professional, had some questions due entirely to the fact that the install manual made no sense in some sections. In the end, he figured it out. Unfortunately, the extra time it took for him to decode the sometimes confusing and sometimes nonsensical information in both the install manual and user manual COST ME AN ARM AND A LEG.


MORE CONS:

3. Flaky Product? - Despite numerous requests for clarifications e-mailed to DOWON-Tec...and despite their repeated promises to get back to me, I'm still perplexed as to why, sometimes, my ST800...I fully admit that these three flaky behaviors could actually be "operator error," but again, I point to the incredibly bad support and the even-worse documentation as the root cause, assuming that it's not flaky product.


EVEN MORE CONS:

4. Valet-no-more - Forget about valet parking. It confuses the hell out of car wash guys, too. So much so that I've even created a laminated cheat sheet for valets to refer to when they attempt to start or stop the engine. I'll attach it to this posting...AND WOULD BE HAPPY TO EDIT IT and re-post it, if you can tell me what's not accurate about it.


5. Forfeit a chipped key - You'll have to buy an expensive chipped key and bury it in the bypass box. Mine cost $80 at ACE...because I didn't want to forfeit my factory key for this purpose. Oh, and you'll also have to buy a non-chipped key and cut the shank off to put it in your factory ignition.


6. Wiring diagram - The wiring diagram is a separate document that ships with the ST800. While for the most part, the diagram is very clear and probably the single most helpful document that ships with the unit, it doesn't exactly say that you MUST wrap the key sensor bypass antenna TIGHTLY AND AT LEAST THREE TIMES around your ignition cylinder.

On the contrary, in fact, it plainly shows the antenna wire wrapped only twice...and there's no mention of the three-loop requirement in the install manual or in the crazy-bad user manual...but if you don't wrap the antenna wire tightly and at least three times around, you'll wonder why your remote start reservations work sometimes, but not other times.


7. One fob - The unit ships with only one keyfob. If you lose it, you'll have to use the window keypad until your new one arrives. But if you're like me, you won't remember your password for the keypad, so you'll be hosed.



---------
Having said all that, both Nhat (jeffersontruong on eBay) and Sean (before he quit, assuming he actually did) both really did help me out with the install and the early issues -- which in retrospect were due almost entirely to the bad looping of the antenna wire...and which may have been avoided, had the install documentation been higher quality.

So for now, I'm stuck with it....but I'm seriously thinking of yanking the ST800 out, given the flaky behavior. It'd be nice to get answers to some of my still outstanding questions (as per a, b, and c above)...and better yet, it'd be great to have a well-written English language user manual.

PM me if you have any interest in working on a page-by-page re-write of the manual. Perhaps a group of us could post an English-readable version to a wiki, for the benefit of other ST800 users...and get Jeremy to pay us to host it.

Finally, kudos to sssmasss for his many postings on this forum, many of which were invaluable to me and to my installer.



Oh...and one more thing....I have a E7-B for sale. It was installed...but never used...and then uninstalled. My installer could not figure out how to get one particular aspect of it to work...so after LITERALLY TWO WEEKS of my car being in his shop, he uninstalled it and installed the ST800. So, if you're interested, PM me, and I'll send you pictures of exactly what my installed and un-installed E7-B looks like...and we can make a deal, if you're interested.

 

I have had mine for about 8 months and never had a single issue with the system.

Sean was helpful but his assistance got worse and worse with time.

I will help answer anyone's questions they may have with the install i'm no pro but I installed mine pretty smoothly.

 

Hi Everyone

I have been meaning to get this out to the public, but have just been very busy with other priorities. Firstly, I am a professional installer and run a small shop in Vancouver, BC, Canada. I came across the ST800 when a customer purchased it on eBay and brought it to me to install. The install was tricky as it was not something we did on a daily basis (eg. cutting keys for bypassing ignition lock). However, we did figure it out in the end and I was highly impressed with the product. I contacted Auto Innovatio around Feb 2012 and requested to become a dealer... and so began my horrendous experience with this so-called "company".

The Story

The date was Feb 2, 2012... I was very excited to receive a response email from Jeremy Yong after sending a request to become a dealer through Auto Innovatio's website. Thanks to today's technology, all evidences are available for your viewing



Jeremy Yong states he is from DW-Tech in this email:









Funny thing, Jeremy stated he was from DW-Tech in the 2nd email.



After this, they no longer respond to my emails. The purpose of this post is to inform potential customers and to expose the nature of Auto Innovatio's business. I took a risk sending wire payment to a personal bank account. I did so because I decided to trust this company due to the amount of support and positive feedback found on this and other forums. I have learned from other sources that Jeremy infact actually worked for DW-Tech in Korea. The amount of lies and BS that he makes up when it comes to after-sales service is just over the top. Funny thing is, after ignoring all my emails.. I used an alternative email account with different name to request a quote.. and he responded to that immediately.

Conclusion

I hope this post will be helpful for anyone looking into buying the ST800 from them. Apparently, I am not the only victim. It would be great if anyone else who has had similar experiences would come out and share their story. I don't know how they are still in business, but apparently they are. Their USA guy Sean has already resigned long ago, don't count on any support from him. The eBay seller Nathan is still operating but he can't offer any resolutions either to my case. Beware of Auto Innovatio as they are still taking orders through their website. I was told Jeremy has recently quit as well. If you have any questions feel free to shoot me a pm.

 

That pisses me off so bad. If anyone asks me what I have for an alarm I am not going to tell them. So annoying. I'm sorry man that does suck.

 

I just bought a 350Z with this alarm installed. After messing around with it for awhile, I decided that it's garbage and I want to get rid of it. Not only that, but the car didn't come with any keys, only the FOB for the "Alibaba".

Mainly, I want it gone because while my wife was driving down the road the system completely shut off the car.

What is the quickest way to shut this system down? I tried finding the main box but couldn't. Does it normally go on the driver's side?

For right now I just want to get a key made and order a factory remote so I don't deal with this lousy install.

 

that's a shame the company doesn't seem to be doing well. i purchased my st-960 around February and I have no complaints. it even eliminated the starting problem i was having. every now and again my car wouldn't start unless i turned it on and off 3 times. hell, they even took 15 or 30 dollars off my total when i bought it because they said they were going to run a special on the units.

for the people who have had such problems. it maybe because it's not an alarm that been around a while,bad quality check control, or it could be the install.

 

I think your issue is with the install. It is fairly complicated to install and if someone took any shortcuts you would run into issues.

Best way to do it is to remove the lower dash panel and follow the wires coming from the stock ignition harness back to the box. Remove all the wires and plug back in the stock ignition wire. There should be a piece of key in your ignition and the stock black plastic part of the key to send the signal should be in a separate box usually hidden in the car somewhere.

If you need more help please feel free to shot me a pm with your phone number and I will do the best I can to help.

 

I dug around last night and found the bypass box with the other half of the key in it. Once I go have another key made I will disconnect everything I can find. If I have any specific questions I will shoot you a PM. Thanks for offering the advice.

 

Well, so much for this idea.

 

no **** right

 

Wow.

The only brand of these awesome Korean toys to make it to the USA and it ends up crashing and burning over a dealer order. Shocker. I figured it would end with some product glitch, not just greed.

Buyer beware?

 

It'd be nice if a reputable American company would make something like this. I was set on getting this until I read further and further through the thread.

 

Wish I would have seen this last year. Oh well, guess I'll have to try and find it the next time I'm in Korea

 

Is the EasyCar system from the same manufacturer rebadged or a truly totally different company all together?

Had the st-800 awhile back, went south had a hell of a time. Anyways, looking for a replacement system with the same features. Easycar e8 or advanced keys AK-104B

 

It's been 2 years having my ST-800 without any issues and starting about 2 weeks ago, my car stopped allowing me to start the engine by push button or via the remote engine start button. I've replaced the battery in the remote 3 times since I installed the system and it's been working terrific. Now it's become unreliable and I hope you can give me a trick to resolve my problem.

Issue: When I try to start the car either via Remote Start or through the Push Button, the care and all electrical components act like they are going to start as normal, but the engine doesn't kick over. It's like the area of the system isn't acknowledging the remote is in distance and disengaging the security to allow the car to start even though all electrical components are coming on. I remember I had this issue when installing the system and it had something to do with the sensor to disengage the local security.

Workarounds: I've had 3 times now the car has left me almost stranded because I didn't carry my original Key with me. What I've had to do is play with engaging and disengaging the alarm via the remote (ST800) and the last time I had AAA out because I thought it was the battery since it got cold all of sudden. They played with placing the remote close to the push button and played with it several times and all of sudden the car started after about 30 minutes of playing around.

Ideas?

 

Just like everyone else, I cannot get ahold of anyone for any reason. I lost my key and I'm desperately trying to buy another one. If anyone can point me in the right direction, that would be great. Thanks.

 

Similar to my problem that mine has been having. But yours sounds like it something to do with a bad connection or something because if it was something to do with the remote the dash lights would not come on at all.

My problem: I stand by the car the door will not unlock. Push the button the doors will not unlock. I enter my code on the window to unlock them and everything else works fine.

Once and awhile it will beep like the remote is not in the area when i try to start it but after about 10 seconds of trying it usually works.

I have changed the batteries as well.

I have a feeling it is something to do with the brain. I might try and change it seeing as I have a whole extra system but won't be till spring since I'm putting it away very soon.

I also have only driven it a handful of times in the last couple months so I don't know if that has anything to do with it. I would say you should hide a key somewhere in the vehicle just in case.