1996 850glt. Intermittent alarm problems over the past few years. Today I discovered, after the third dead battery episode where the car sits for a week and the battery is drained completely, that the front left hood latch which is tied into the alarm system may be the problem. I opened the hood and then set the latch on the hood latch to the locked position by tripping it. Tried to simulate the opening of the hood by forcing the latch with a screw driver and literally trying to break the latch to see if it would set off the alarm. No luck. There is 12 volts coming up to the sensor that signals whether the latch is locked or unlocked. So good so far. But when I ohmed the latch sensor wires I get infinite resistence thru the sensor regardless of whether the latch is locked or open. Logically it seems the circuit should be open when the latch is in one position or the other, depending on how it is wired.
I have looked for other sensors on the hood, proximity switches or similar type of detection devices and have found none on this model. There are no other electrical devices under the plastic where the front of the hood lies. I checked all other lights that are wired to the "hot battery bus" and found none that are remaining on when they should be off.
Any electrical types care to comment on the latch theory?