I had a 1950 Ford that didn’t have locks. Had my favorite jeans stolen out of the glove box. 
But I wouldn’t buy a car without locks now, hehe. That one truck was just too nice to pass up
I once owned a Triumph Spitfire which, even if locked, could be entered easily by unbuttoning the soft-top. So I left it unlocked (in California). I came home from a vacation to find the soft-top cut (not only didn’t thief try unbuttoning – he didn’t test the unlocked door). He’d tried to steal the radio, but didn’t figure out how to detach it. :smack:
I live in Thailand now where some types of theft are less common than one might expect. We often leave minor valuables in the back bed of our pick-up with little fear they’ll be stolen.
I chose the first option, with an explanation. We actually did buy a vehicle without locks recently. It was a used half-ton pickup and the locks were among many things that didn’t work. We brought it home and replaced the lock cylinders. Even living in the country, we keep our vehicles locked at all times, but I think that’s more habit from our city years than anything else. We don’t keep anything in our vehicles worth stealing, but we lock them nonetheless.
I live just north of Flint, Michigan and wouldn’t dream of leaving a vehicle unlocked in most parts of that city. In fact I often lock the van from the inside while driving. Years ago some guy climbed into a vehicle I was driving when I was at a stop light…I was so shocked and pissed off I didn’t even think about what he wanted, I started screaming at the top of my lungs and punching him and he ran away. 
Since then I’ve gotten into the habit of locking whatever I’m driving.
That said I also have an old truck with inoperable locks. It’s a stick shift, which probably lessens its desireability as a vehicle to be stolen, (not to mention old and rusty with almost 260,000 miles on it.) When I drive it, I don’t leave anything of value inside and wouldn’t leave it parked anywhere in the city unattended.
In its younger days, that truck was stolen, used in a drive-by shooting and then run into a fence. I stupidly left it unlocked with the keys under the seat in a very “nice” upscale area, but it still got stolen. Luckily I was still making payments on it and had full coverage insurance.
I would buy a lock-less vehicle if it was a beater, or otherwise a great deal and not too expensive to fix.
In my town it is a ticketable offence to leave your car unlocked. Although it is true it won’t stop a determined, it sure makes it hard for kids to go joyriding and that is what the law is about.
Depends on the location I’m parking whether locking or not; but most of the time I do use the locks and would not prefer to own a car that didn’t have them. I have valuables in my car at any one time, and usually park in locations where although breaking out the car window would create a scene - simply opening the car door would not.
I rarely lock my car–only if I’m in a more citified place than my hometown. Locally, there’s a neighborhood kid who occasionally runs away and is known to hide in cars…when he goes missing you can see people up and down the block all going out to lock their doors.
When I pick up my papers in the mornings I have to sit in the car for a couple of minutes to go over starts/stops etc, and I always lock my car then, just because I’m alone in a parking lot. A few years ago my then-teenage son was helping me and was robbed at gunpoint by a man who opened his unlocked door and pulled him right out of the front seat. That’s about the only time I lock up at all, though.
I not only lock my doors, but also I make the extra effort to park next to someone who left them unlocked.
My car frequently has stuff that’s worth lifting the door handle to steal but not nearly worth the hassle and potential exposure of breaking a window to steal. A couple of books, a jacket that I needed in the morning but don’t need in the middle of the day, my cheapie MP3 player, that kind of thing. So yeah, I generally lock my car.
If I’m out of my car, I lock the doors.
If I’m in my car, I lock the doors.
I’m an old guy and fall into the “target” area now; why make it easier to rob or carjack me?
My car is 10 years old, I believe. It will lock itself when it’s driven more than a few feet, but it doesn’t have those remote control locks.
I would.
I mostly don’t lock my car doors. If I have stuff in my car I don’t want stolen, I tend to lock it just in case someone is walking by trying doors. My car doesn’t have a fancy stereo or interior and is not of a type that is frequently stolen. Also, I don’t feel locking the car doors is going to deter anyone other than the casual thief.
I don’t lock the doors in my neighborhood. I do lock them at the store. This is not logical, just behavior.
I have an old Mustang ragtop. The top is never up. The doors are never locked.
I read the police blotter for my town every week. When it comes to theft from cars 90+% of the time the story mentions the car being unlocked. Since it takes 2 seconds to lock and 2 seconds to unlock, I lock the car whenever I’m going to walk away from it.
This is the first I have ever heard of this feature. I drive a 15 year old car (beater) and 4 year old car (not beater).
When I drove a crappy car, I didn’t bother to lock the doors and even when cars were burglarized nearby, I never had issues. Now that I drive a nice car, I keep it locked and make sure not to leave anything of value in sight and it was burglarized one of the few times I left it unlocked and they went through and stole a bunch of stuff that was worth little monetarily (a pack of gum, a $3 bandana, etc.) and left some of the more valuable stuff (Ray-Bans, rare CDs, etc.). Some of the stuff they took was worthless to them but a pain in the ass to replace like my CAC. Since the whole neighborhood was hit, I probably would have been skipped if it had been locked, so I wish it had been locked.
Either way, if someone is determined to hit YOUR car, they’ll do it with or without it being locked and it’s the same with your house or pretty much anything else for that matter. But if they’re hitting YOUR car or YOUR house, they’re doing it because they have good reason to do so, like they know you have valuables or they have something out for you. For the vast majority of cases, it’s probably some kids car hopping for some quick cash and since there’s probably dozens of other cars nearby, they’ll probably skip over a locked car than break a window because that will draw attention and, unless there’s obvious payoff (a laptop, wallet, phone, etc.) it’s not worth the risk.
In high school, I had a '63 VW. Technically, it had locks, but they were challenging to use, so I left it unlocked most of the time. As it was a very easily identifiable car (not too many 26 year old primer grey beetles around), it was more than a little prone to hijinks. I would come out of the movies and find that “friends” had moved it to the other side of the parking lot, or something like that.
My peer group is a little more mature these days, but still, I’m glad my cars lock now.
Many higher end cars have a completely keyless system. You just have a control chip you keep on your keychain. It’ll lock automatically when you’re away from your car. It’ll unlock automatically when you’re opening the car. It’ll even turn its engine on with the press of a button.
If the only downside the OP sees to the whole lock thingy is the fumbling of the keys, perhaps he wishes to invest in this piece of equipment which would negate that issue.
Me? I’ll keep locking my car, thank you. And I’d be really loathe to actually buy a car that advertised as having no locks. Does it also come with a welcome mat for theives?
I don’t lock my car doors, never have. I don’t have anything valuable in there, and I’ve never had anything stolen. Someday my car will probably get stolen and I’ll learn my lesson, by I’m 43 and I’ve just never had any problems with keeping my car doors unlocked.