Growing up, we all thought simple, the extra work required to lock a door on a Japanese car (I mean the ones that were around in the 70s and 80s)made it harder lock your keys inside. Presumably, some great Japanese psycho-ergonomics firm introduced this innovation and it helped to catapult these automobiles to the top of the American market.
It doesn’t really make sense though, the key-minder strategy. Firstly, the extra move to lock the door becomes automatic over time and probably wouldn’t prevent lock-outs. Secondly, as Japanese car makers rolled higher priced cars off the assembly lines, these elite models had door locks that simply closed when locked, without any handle-holding. Why would they eliminate this important “convenience feature” in their most important autos.
So now I have a newer, more cynical view of that old hold-the-handle-to-lock mechanism. It was cheap to make. The original Japanese import was an economy car like no other before. High fuel economy, roughly appointed interior, and no frill locks (perhaps). Is there anyone that has firsthand info regarding these locks?
I am absolutely horrible about perpetrating this error. I’ve managed to lock keys in other people’s cars, as far as I can remember, three times in my life. However, since I have a Toyota Camry, I’ve never done this to myself, and I’m sure the door-unlocking feature has saved me from it at least once. However, I’m not sure if the benefit of avoiding locking the keys in outweighs the hazard of an increased chance of leaving the door unlocked.
I’ve had two Porsches. On both of them, the driver’s door could only be locked with a key (unless you’re inside of the car, of course). This was very good protection against locking the keys inside.
I was in another German car, but I don’t remember what kind. It also required a key to lock the driver’s door from the outside. Must be a German thing…
The U.S. cars prior to the late 1960’s generally required that you held in the button on the handle with your thumb in order to prevent the lock from unlocking when the door was closed. Same principle.
(I had Rabbits from 1977 - 1992 and they also had the “driver’s door requires a key.” I did manage to lock myself out one time when I loaded the passenger seat with stuff–including the keys–then locked and closed that door out of habit. I have never left the house without a separate key in my wallet, since.)
I always thought the reason for having to lift the handle was so you didn’t accidentally lock the door. BTW, older Volvos are even more annoying - you have to lift the handle and then press the door lock button to lock the door. Once again, you can easily lock the keys in the car, but you can’t accidentally lock the door (you know, shut the door knowing the keys are in there, then when you go to open it it’s locked).
My friend has a 1986 Chevy Nova (motto: This thing CAN go faster than 40, honestly) that has the crazy locking mechanism on the passenger side. I don’t know if he has it on the driver side, and I don’t know if maybe the lock is just busted cuz it’s such an old car, but nearly every time I get out of his car, I close the door without remembering to pull the handle. Fortunately most people try to stay at least 20 feet away from that thing, even when unlocked…
My wife’s 1991 Honda Civic requires a key to lock the drivers side door. It also has an automatic seat belt device that is absolutely an instrument of Satan.
My wife’s 1991 Honda Civic requires a key to lock the drivers side door. It also has an automatic seat belt device that is absolutely an instrument of Satan.
While visiting my dad, my wife went out to my car (a Mercury Sable) to retrieve something. When she came back in, she said that the car was doing something wierd as she was trying to lock it - she would hit the lock button and the lock would just pop back up.
I told her that it was a feature to keep you from locking the keys in the car - if the keys are in the ignition and you press the electric door lock with the driver’s side door open, the driver’s door lock will pop back up.
She then told me that she just pushed the lock stick down manually, and closed the door. This was a fairly expensive mistake, because the nearest locksmith was 40 miles away, and they charge for travel.
This episode reminded me of the old adage that it’s difficult to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.
If it was an economy measure, then one would expect all the doors on a four-door car to use the lift-to-lock method. I’ve owned at least one car that used lift-to-lock on the fronts but not on the rear doors, a confusing combination to be sure. In any case, if it was done to be cheap, they’d be cheap all around. Lift-to-lock was a feature, even if most US customers didn’t like it much. (I didn’t either.)
Now, as CurtC points out, the US manufacturers are starting to experiment with their own bizarre anti-lockout schemes. At least the Japanese systems were simple and learnable. My GF has a '99 GM car that does a fine impression of demonic posession when it comes to it’s electric locks. After a year of manual-searching and hands-on experience, we’ve given up - we ignore the locks as they gyrate in whatever nonsensical way they please, and we just try to get it locked once we park it. GM isn’t doing this because it’s cheaper, either. For better or for worse, the people that design cars keep trying to fix the lockout problem.
I’ve got a remote to open my car door. Also, when you start the car, it locks all the doors in about 2-3 seconds. At first, I had my ignition key on the remotes key loop. No more:
One winter morning, I unlocked the car and got in just enough to start it (you have to depress the clutch). I then grabbed the ice scraper and got out to clean off the windows. Just as I was closing the door, the locks engaged. click slam To make matters worse, my housekey was also on the remote’s chain.
I didn’t know my neighbors very well, and it was hard to tell who was up and about so I could ask to borrow their phone. (My cell phone was also locked in the car.) I found one lady who let me make my call. It took the locksmith 45 minutes to get there. This all was a $75 lesson.
Needless to say, the remote not longer has either the ignition nor house keys on it.
(Later, I’ll tell you how my cat locked me out of my house.)
I think it may not be so simple with the rear door, Lagged. Most cars have lock cylinders (for opening /locking the door with a key) on the front doors but not on the rear. So you need different locks on the front and rear. And what’s cheap and simple in a lock without a cylinder may not be so in a lock that has one.
My Vauxhall nova (gm, so it may be the same as the chevy nova mentioned earlier?) has a handle on the passenger side that you can just push the latch bit down & slam the door & it locks, but on the driver’s side you have to lift the handle, then push the latch down then slam the door, so it does seem a deliberate design feature (since it would be cheaper to use exactly the same parts - only one set of tooling to be done at the factory).
The only time I locked my keys in the car was in the boot (trunk), but I have been locked out of the car by the dogs (the latch will go down & stay down if the door is shut…I never leave my keys in the car with the dogs even for a few seconds anymore) & the house (they jumped on the bolt (bad design, it doesn’t have one of those catch bits that you have to rotate off the rest before pushing) at the bottom of the kitchen door. It then started to rain & my neighbours with my spare front door key were out…I now cary my front door keys even in the back garden). They also threw me (ok tripped me) head first down the stairs once, so I’m starting to wonder if there’s a pattern here…
maybe to save retooling - if they sell cars to England & the states, they would need to set up the factory to do two sets of antilock/non-antilock door orientations to allow for changing driver side, this way they only have to redo the inside…
Fi.
I’ve locked myself out just a couple times, but it’s enough where I will never shut the door without making quite sure I have the keys.
Apparently the latest model cars equipped with GPS and such have some safeguards against this as well. If worse comes to worse, you just call their 1-800 number and they will unlock your doors via satellite!