Just hit the “door lock” button on the drivers side door as you get out, as opposed to using the fob and all the doors lock and no horn is beeped.
Same for my '12 Ford Mustang.
… and the alarm (and/or immobilizer) aren’t activated. Whoops.
That sounds like a bad idea: wouldn’t that mean you have no way of unlocking the car if the battery dies?
You will a ‘jump’ anyway… 
Only **If **you can open the door to gain access to the hood release to jump the battery :eek:
The cars have vacuum operated central locking, so you theoretically get a few locks/unlocks on the residual vacuum in the system if (possibly a big if) there’s no leaks. Failing that, AAA with a slim-jim.
You could also crawl under the car with your jumper cables/start pack and clamp the positive cable to the terminal on the starter solenoid and the negative to the chassis. That should give enough power to get the central locking pump going and shouldn’t activate the starter, but I probably wouldn’t want to do that on a stick shift that was left in gear.
That wasn’t in the OP’s criteria.
Pretty much. Never heard any of my city dwelling friends complain about car chirping. I just don’t think it’s a factor in my neighborhood. For one, I live about 1.5 miles from an airport underneath a flight path. For two, during the summer, it’s not unusual to have loud outdoor ranchero music parties go on until midnight or later on weekends. Or loud drag racing (although has subsided over the last few years–there used to be a bit of organized drag racing that brought large groups of people out to the factory areas by my house.) A car chirp just does not register on anyone’s radar. Or sonar.
Wow, I had no idea they were vacuum-operated. Why so complex? I would have thought it would be cheaper to use a simple solenoid instead of a system that employs a vacuum pump, vacuum reservoir, and a system of vacuum hoses. Electrical power is already available in the doors because of the window motors.
Doesn’t work on all cars. VW’s have a feature that prevents the door from locking with the door lock button when the door is open to prevent the driver from locking the keys in the car. On many recent model VWs, there’s no way to lock the car from the outside without the horn chirping unless you take it to a dealership to get the alarm and lock settings changed, and even then I’m not sure that’s possible with all models.
FWIW I have never seen a car where the keyhole in the drivers door isn’t mechanically connected to the door lock.
Furthermore it has been decades since I was aware of vacuum operated locking systems.
Do you have a cite for either one of these statements?
Okay, so yeah, doing a little googling I’ll backpedal a little. The Audi/VW systems I’m thinking of apparently are supposed to have a small cable that provides a mechanical link between the key and the door lock, they’re just notorious for breaking. When that happens, the door lock still usually works fine since it activates the central locks, but if the battery dies (and the vacuum leaks out) you’re SOL.
And, yeah, the vacuum systems are on somewhat older cars, but it looks like Audi and Mercedes kept using them on some cars into the mid-2000’s.
The Prius makes a small electronic high-pitched beep.
My 2000 Chrysler minivan woofs a bit using the horn, which I don’t like, so I always use the button on the door. The downside to this is that I could possibly lock my keys in my car, but it hasn’t happened yet. Maybe in the next 13 years. Knock on wood.
Just wanted to say I’m amazed at how many people are annoyed by the ‘beeping’ car lock/alarm sound. Car alarms going off in the middle of the night? Sure! But just the short little beep? Doesn’t really seem that noticeable…
My '12 Toyota Camry has three ways to lock the car without beeping.
Use the lock/unlock rocker switch on the door panel, between the mirror adjust and the window switches.
Use the mechanical device at the hinge end of the door latch lever (the one that blips from red to black when you use the remote button.)
After closing the door, use the actual key in the lock to lock the doors.
The OP didn’t ask about beeping, she asked about honking. Vehicles that honk when they lock/unlock are way more annoying than those that give a little cheep.
I always ask the dealer to tweak the computer so that the car doesn’t honk. Personally, I find honking annoying and pretentious.
And while we’re on the subject, the buglar alarm went off in the car next to me in the parking lot last summer. When the owner arrived, I advised her of that fact. She had intentionally set off the alarm so that she could find her car. Has anyone actually heard a car alarm that went off while the car was being burglarized?
Pretentious? That’s an odd one. Unfortunately, if you’re like me and have a tendency to forget where you put your car in the parking garage/lot, it’s really nice to have that honk activated.
Well, last time I remember a car alarm going off in the neighborhood, it was 4 a.m., and it looked like my neighbor’s car was being repo’ed, so that’s almost like a burglary. Other than that, I got nothin’.
No one’s saying you shouldn’t be able to remotely honk your car, just that it shouldn’t happen automatically when you lock it.