Hi all,

I just had to replace my negative battery cable and grounding wire because of corrosion, and upon replacing the cables on the terminal the alarm will sound and the lights will flash. I've let it go on for about a minute and a half and it doesn't stop, and the truck will not start (turning the key does absolutely nothing).

Things I have tried:

- Disconnected both battery cables for about six minutes, put the positive back on, and then the negative.
- Locked and unlocked passenger and driver doors multiple times with negative cable both on and off.
- Put the key in the iginition and turned to "On" position before reconnecting negative cable. The alarm does not sound and the headlights do not flash, but the red LED on my dash above the headlight knob continually flashes and I still cannot start the truck (turning the key does absolutely nothing, again). As soon as I turn the ignition back to the "Lock" position the alarm starts sounding.

The local Dodge service senter recommended the passenger door unlock, which did nothing (had already tried it, but tried it again). Owner's manual and Hanes repair manual mention nothing about the security/antitheft system other than to mention that the truck indeed has one (ya think?!) and the battery/battery cable replacement walkthrough in the Hanes manual does not deal with deactivating or resetting the antitheft system. Dodge's extremely helpful 800 number just told me to go look on the website, which is devoid of any and all useful information.

It's the factory antitheft system and I have manual door locks. I do have the alarm fobs somewhere, but would have to dig around to find them. Is there any way to disable or reset the antitheft system with just the key? Would the fobs even do anything?

Thanks for any help you may be able to provide.

I am an idiot. I found my keyfob, hit the Disarm button for the alarm and was able to start the vehicle. I'll proceed to beat my brains out with a torque wrench now.

Still curious to know if there is a way to deactivate the system using only the key as I don't carry the fobs with me (one has the keychain attachment broken off, the other needs to be recoded).