recently I have experienced the doors automatically locking when I get out and shut the door. Do I have a gremlin in there, or did I hit something to set them to auto lock? odd thing because I almost always use my fob to lock/unlock. this morning I go out and see the doors are locked, and have that sinking feeling I left both keys in the car. fortunately I had taken one out last night and it was in my pocket. Is it just possible that i hit the lock button in error, 3 times now, or is an auto lock a feature on the car that I've missed? Thanks! i did do a search but saw nothing resembling this question.

 

There is an auto lock feature that threw me off for months. I kept bringing it back to the dealer thinking I had a problem... but the problem was I didn't read the owners manual. I had the car almost 4 years and never noticed the auto lock feature. Here is how it works (or what my problem was)...

Here is the scenerio... The doors would be closed. I hit the remote to unlock the doors. You wait 45 seconds and the doors relock themselves.

When you press the remote to unlock the doors, if you don't actually open the door it will automatically lock back up.

I kept the car in the garage and kept playing with it to test if the doors would lock back up. I would get out of the car and close the doors. Lock it with the Fob and unlock it without opening up the door (that was my mistake). I would unlock the car, leave and then come out the next morning. I couldn't figure out why it locked back up. I thought it was a gremlin. But the sensor knows if you opened the door or not. The car assumes the key is not in the car because the doors never opened. So for safety purpose it locks back up. The dealer said there is a way to turn this feature off but I didn't care to know how to do it.... just as long as I understood why it was happening and it wasn't broken.

Try getting out of the car, close the door and walk away. Don't touch any buttons on the key fob. Don't lock it and unlock it. Just walk away. I bet it never locks back up.

Does this help? If not, sometimes I notice the key fob might jam up against something in my pocket and lock the car. I also know people that had batteries go bad in the key fob and it starts sending wierd signals. In my case it was the auto lock feature. You may want to read the manual...

 

thanks BlackCross, I suppose it could be the battery in the fob, it's a 2006, so theoretically it's been in there for 3 years-I too am more in the mode of why it happens. I don't think I've been hitting the button while it's in my pocket, as i generally hang my key up, or leave it on a table. And it's only happened while I've gotten out of the car, shut the door like in my garage without hitting any button, or yesterday at my parents' driveway, where I don't lock it at all. So I shut the car off, take the key and when I come back out all the doors are locked. that's why I wondered if i had pressed the unlock switch on the dash, maybe like 2X in quick succession, that maybe set an auto lock function.

 

I am thinking the low battery might cause the key fob to send wierd signals. Either that or your lock button is jammed just enough to make contact. Try putting the key FAR AWAY from the car and way out of range.... see if that helps. A friend of mine couldn't figure out why his panic alarm kept going off on the car.... he replaced the battery in the key fob and all was ok.

FYI--- I had my key for 4 years. I use my car everyday and unlock the doors with the remote. I never changed the battery. I have a back up battery ready to go just in case.