Door Handles: Warning! My car is not actually auto-locking

kishdude · Feb 3, 2013

I just discovered today after some testing with the key fob, that my car is not locking using the walk-away lock. I have this feature set to on on my car with the latest software 4.2. Here are the steps that I took:

1) car is unlocked and parked.
2) got out of the car with both key fobs and placed them over 30 feet away from the car.
3) after about 30 seconds, the door handles retracted and it looks like the car is locked, but it isn't.
4) I walked back to the car without the fobs and was able to open the trunk and touch the door handles and have them extend - ie the car was not locked.

The problem is that unless you specifically test for this, you would not find it because under normal circumstances, you would walk back to the car with the fob in your pocket and the handles would extend and you would normally assume that the car has unlocked and extended the handles for you.

I can lock the car using the fob but it will not auto-lock using the walk-away feature.

Can someone please check with their car to see if this is specific to my car or a global issue?

walla2 · Feb 3, 2013

You can also use your phone app to see if it is locked. I noticed one time in my garage that the car was unlocked even though it should have been locked. Also on 4.2.

Sparrow · Feb 3, 2013

Yes, the app makes me feel better that the auto locks are working properly. I have tested mine a few times the way you did by walking away and them coming back without the key fob, but it has always locked.

kishdude · Feb 3, 2013

Yes, it seems the problem is intermittent. I just tried this again and it did lock. I guess I'm going to get into the habit of always locking with the fob. There is no way from just looking at the car to see if it is locked. The phone app will definitely help.

Todd Burch · Feb 3, 2013

You might need to get further than 30 ft away. Have you tried that? Did you see the lights blink in your experiment?

Of course after a minute the handles retract even if walk away locking hasn't activated. Sounds like in your experiment you were still within the FOB radius for locking.

woodguy3 · Feb 3, 2013

I have the same problem. The car doesn't lock. Either walk away or single press on the fob. I thought it was just the newbie. Haven't even driven the car yet, no plates

brianman · Feb 3, 2013

woodguy3 said:
I have the same problem. The car doesn't lock. Either walk away or single press on the fob. I thought it was just the newbie. Haven't even driven the car yet, no plates

Yours doesn't lock when you single press the key fob? First report I've heard of that particular issue.

efusco · Feb 3, 2013

Tested mine, locks fine.

William3 · Feb 3, 2013

I've got firmware 4.2 and the auto-lock feature turned on. I'd say that about 10% of the time the door handles will retract but the car will not be locked. It really sucks. I'm sure it is happening to lots of owners and they don't even realize it.

JoshG · Feb 3, 2013

woodguy3 said:
I have the same problem. The car doesn't lock. Either walk away or single press on the fob. I thought it was just the newbie. Haven't even driven the car yet, no plates

I had this exact problem... and then discovered that it was due to my spare keyfob being "lost" under one of the seats. The original poster on this thread clearly stated he had both fobs, so it's not the issue there... but for Woodguy and others, may want to make sure you don't accidentally have an extra keyfob in the vehicle (or stored NEAR the vehicle somewhere). This is the behavior you'll get with a 2nd keyfob inside (or in range) of the vehicle: handles eventually retract, but car will never lock, either with the fob or with "walk-away lock" feature.

dsm363 · Feb 4, 2013

Now that the iPhone and Android apps are officially out, you can check again as you walk away to see if it does indeed lock if you have a phone on either platform.

nrcooled · Feb 4, 2013

I have checked the locking function of my car a lot. This is due to me forgetting the fob in the house or office thinking that it was in my pocket. Every single time the car is locked, the handles don't present and I can't touch the handles to get the car to open.

kishdude · Feb 4, 2013

JoshG said:
I had this exact problem... and then discovered that it was due to my spare keyfob being "lost" under one of the seats. The original poster on this thread clearly stated he had both fobs, so it's not the issue there... but for Woodguy and others, may want to make sure you don't accidentally have an extra keyfob in the vehicle (or stored NEAR the vehicle somewhere). This is the behavior you'll get with a 2nd keyfob inside (or in range) of the vehicle: handles eventually retract, but car will never lock, either with the fob or with "walk-away lock" feature.

I did this as well. I couldn't find my second key fob for a few days and I thought that it was in the house somewhere, but it was actually in the car under the seat. During this time, when I would lock the car manually by pressing button, when I returned to the car, the handles would not auto-present, and I would have to manually unlock with the fob again. So if you find that your car is not automatically presenting the handles, and won't unlock when touching the handles, make sure your second fob is not in the car. Also in this situation, when you walk away, the door handles will retract, but the car will not lock.

wycolo · Feb 4, 2013

Only way I'm sure that doors are locked is to place key on curb ~50 feet away, then walk back to car & try to get in. Then remember to retrieve key.

Is there a way to *only* have driver's door handle present, instead of all four?? On those rare occasions I can press PARK to present the other handles if needed.
--

mknox · Feb 4, 2013

JoshG said:
I had this exact problem... and then discovered that it was due to my spare keyfob being "lost" under one of the seats.

The car should warn you if a fob is left in the car by honking the horn and/or flashing the lights if it attempts to lock when no one is in the car. This is keyless entry 101, and every car I know of with this type of system will do that.

One other thing I find curious is that others were reporting that the car would lock if a fob was left in the car (say, in a jacket pocket which I do all the time!) causing people to be locked out of their cars. Perhaps a recent software update changed this behavior?

JoshG · Feb 4, 2013

kishdude said:
I did this as well. I couldn't find my second key fob for a few days and I thought that it was in the house somewhere, but it was actually in the car under the seat. During this time, when I would lock the car manually by pressing button, when I returned to the car, the handles would not auto-present, and I would have to manually unlock with the fob again.

You also could have just pressed on a door handle and they would have then popped out. Fob button is the other way to do it.

mknox said:
The car should warn you if a fob is left in the car by honking the horn and/or flashing the lights if it attempts to lock when no one is in the car. This is keyless entry 101, and every car I know of with this type of system will do that.

Agree... but the Model S doesn't do this, at least for now.

mknox said:
One other thing I find curious is that others were reporting that the car would lock if a fob was left in the car (say, in a jacket pocket which I do all the time!) causing people to be locked out of their cars. Perhaps a recent software update changed this behavior?

No idea about the past, but as of v4.1 (probably always been this way), the car may SEEM locked if there's a keyfob left in the car, but it probably isn't. If you approach the car, the handles won't present, but if you push on one of them, they'll pop out. Some owners may mistakenly believe that if the car isn't auto-presenting, then it's "locked", but it's not.

tezco · Feb 18, 2013

Just happened to dial up the app on my iPad to see if charging was complete and saw that the car was unlocked. Not good.

Updated -- Oops Somehow auto lock was back to off, probably user error.....

sorka · May 9, 2015

Came out of Raily's last night and from a distance of several hundred feet away I saw my MS headlights on in the distance. As I approached, I realize the handles were already out even though I was still 50+ feet away. The car had not auto locked.

This morning the handles won't present and the car won't unlock unless I press the fob button to unlock it.

Same with both fobs. Car won't auto lock or unlock at all now and won't respond to touching a handle to unlock.

I was fortunate that I didn't have my briefcase in the car. I've been depending on this feature and to have it fail like this means I can never trust it again. Very unfortunate.

I rebooted both center console and the cluster. No difference.

jerry33 · May 9, 2015

Did you check to ensure that auto-lock is on? Sometimes upgrades mess with the settings.

sorka · May 9, 2015

Yes. Checked that last night when it first happened.

Door Handles: Warning! My car is not actually auto-locking

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