Auto-lock doors when you leave the car

Re: I have locked the key in my Prius!!

It's possible that the "smart key" enable/disable button was accidentally hit (the button is under the steering wheel near your knees).

 

The Prius does not have a function for automatic door locking relating to speed or walking away from the car. It's just not a feature; that's why your dealer can't set it to do that. There are after market options that will lock when you drive away.

Tom

 

While this seems like it would be a good feature, it isn't. I have it on another vehicle and it is a pain, especially when getting gas. The doors lock then unlock, over and over as you move around the vehicle, it just is pretty annoying.

 

I'm sure that you'd love the convenience of auto-locking, all the way up until the battery in your key fob dies while the keys are still sitting inside the car and you're 3 hours away from home.

 

Then the fob will be in the car and it wouldn't get locked automatically, right.. ?

There's no single practical reason NOT to lock the car when the fob is out of range. It's just some lawyers who are afraid of ghosts, and don't understand technology, that could come up with that...

What strikes me most though, is how many people, who actually use the system "support" this "feature"(or actually support it's absence), and dismiss any reason that one applies to it.. It's like a real cult. I'm amazed.

It's so simple: Automatic unlock is a step ahead using the technolgy to improve "user experience" and having the black button attached to the car, is in fact a step back. I've had a black button on the remote control before that... I had to have an available finger, and I had to remember to use it, but I DIDN'T have to be by one of the front doors, or the trunk... And the answer "but you still have the remote" is stupid, because once you develop the habit to use the button at the door, you stop using the remote, and I'm sure most of you have caught yourselves waiting by the driver's door for all other people to come out and close their doors, just so you can lock the car.

Anyway .. - I hate the feature and the Cult.

 

Except if the battery dies, the car won't "know" that the keys are inside and it would then lock the doors.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's a good feature to have. I just think that people are going to find something to complain about, and if it's not the lack of auto-lock it will be something else.

 

It won't happen. I had the autolock feature on my Mazda CX-9 turned on.
It is works like this:
You get off from the driver' side. The SmartKey system checks all doors and hatch for being closed properly. The system confirms that you are at the driver-side with the fob identified. The system then gives out a short beep to tell you that the "autolock" is in a countdown (3 seconds if you walk away out of range, 30 seconds if you stay within range). Without the short beep, the autolock is not going to kick in at all.
Therefore, when the battery is weak, autolock will not kick in because the fob can't be identified near the driver's door sensor. If you walk away quickly with the fob, the autolock has no time to identify your presence at the driver door, it will not lock.
The scenario at the gas station is an interesting one, though. I usually leave it ajar so that the autolock will not kick in to lock it. The autolock DOES NOT unlock the door for you. It only locks it once when you leave the vehicle.

I hope that is clear about the so called "autolock" feature when you shut down the vehicle and walk away from it.

 

Again - a problem easily solvable by good engineering... The computer currently 'knows' if the keys are inside, or outside, so if the keys are out of range, AND if the 'last known location' is 'outside', then lock the car, otherwise, don't do anything. done. one extra line of code solves your problem.

Not to mention, that dropping both fobs in the ocean (or any type of "both fobs are lost") is a more probable scenario, than the battery running out when the keys are inside and you're not in the car. Statistically speaking...