I don't want my car doors to auto-lock at >15mph

[JakePSD]

This should not be news. Manufacturers have been caving to pressure beyond consumer demand for decades.

The death of the Panther platform is clear evidence of this...

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[awmustang]

I fail to see how a locked door has any more structural integrity than an unlocked door. It's not like locking the door moves large pieces of steel to a new location in the door emulating door bars on a race car cage. All it does is keep the outside handle from opening the door, which is nothing more than changing the position of some tiny little linkage inside the latch mechanism, which is a moot point if the doors automatically unlock in the event of a crash.

The Car Talk guys said it best: Locked doors don't make a car structurally stronger, but CLOSED doors do. And locking the doors makes them more likely to stay closed in a crash. http://www.cartalk.com/content/today-how-do-locked-doors-help-during-crash

The doors should automatically unlock AFTER the crash. It should wait until the car is stopped. The system also turns on the hazards and starts honking the horn. I've seen a Taurus get into an accident on youtube dash cam footage and a few seconds after the car came to a stop the horn started honking and the hazards started. Presumably the doors didn't unlock until these other features are activated.

 

[JakePSD]

The Car Talk guys said it best: Locked doors don't make a car structurally stronger, but CLOSED doors do. And locking the doors makes them more likely to stay closed in a crash. http://www.cartalk.com/content/today-how-do-locked-doors-help-during-crash

The doors should automatically unlock AFTER the crash. It should wait until the car is stopped. The system also turns on the hazards and starts honking the horn. I've seen a Taurus get into an accident on youtube dash cam footage and a few seconds after the car came to a stop the horn started honking and the hazards started. Presumably the doors didn't unlock until these other features are activated.

Of course a closed door improves structural rigidity, however I'm sure *slightly* less so on a car like a Mustang that has no top door frame. However I have never seen or heard of a door opening in a collision that would have otherwise stayed closed had the door been locked. Sure, it COULD happen, arms flailing around and somehow your hand or some other object somehow manages to pull the handle, but if that happens inside the car, the door would open anyway. And the unlocking after a crash is moot if the electrical system gets disconnected during said crash. If the engine stops (which it should from the fuel pump inertia switch) and the battery gets destroyed during, no electrical power, no horn honking, no flashing lights, and no door unlocking. Unless of course each individual part has its own capacitor with enough stored energy to cycle for the necessary time frame.

 

[GP2017GT]

I believe I am safer driving my car with the doors unlocked. Does anyone know if the doors will unlock themselves after a crash?

I tried the settings via the steering wheel menu, but I could not find a way to disable this feature. I wonder if the service department can do this for me.

Anyone?

I'm pretty sure you can open your car door from the inside, even when you are driving. Try it and see. Then you'll have your answer. And your peace of mind.

 

[GP2017GT]

It's like vaccinations or computer updates or any other advancement to modern society. Some people don't want things forced on them regardless if it's in their best interest.

As long as a bad decision is only affecting the person making it, I'm more than happy to let them do 70 MPH on a highway without a seatbelt and the doors unlocked. But for the love of god, please patch your computer so that it doesn't send me penis enlargement emails.

Sorry, my bad.

 

[GP2017GT]

Sorry but no one is going to pull you from a burning vehicle. Today's society has been trained to pull out their cell phones and video it for their 15 minutes of fame on the nightly news or worse take selfies of your charred corpse as if you were a baby dolphin.
Sorry, I'm losing faith in humanity. :tsk:

Actually people do pull people from car accidents all the time. But there is always someone video taping instead of helping. Just saying.

 

[Norm Peterson]

Branden said:
It's like vaccinations or computer updates or any other advancement to modern society. Some people don't want things forced on them regardless if it's in their best interest.


My reply to Branden:
The trouble is, "in their best interest" tends to be defined that way by those who are apparently hard-wired to be more fearful about things in general than others. And they rarely admit that downsides exist, which in the case of auto-locking doors need only be the moments where you're pissed-off at being treated like a little kid with insufficient life experience to make your own choice in the matter. That the insult only persists for a few seconds is not the point either.

What Branden probably wouldn't know is that I've been there with auto-locking. My daughter had a car with the feature, which may well have been a good thing in her situation, she normally having one of our granddaughters in tow. But as an adult the auto-locking was the noisy insistence that somebody else refuses to believe that I can manage such decisions all by myself and feels that it needs to be done for me regardless. Hell, with more than 65 years life experience to that point I would certainly hope I could evaluate the risk and make an appropriate decision. So maybe my age does play a part . . . 60 years ago people weren't so afraid of stuff and making their own choices for themselves was just what people did. We've lost something along the way.


Norm

 

[LOL WUT]

LOL WUT

 

[Balr14]

So maybe my age does play a part . . . 60 years ago people weren't so afraid of stuff and making their own choices for themselves was just what people did.

I'm pretty sure the bad choices people made on their own are the major reason they aren't allowed to make them any more. The favorite phrase that is used is "We are all adults", which has been proven to be wrong every time.

Mustang owners have nothing to complain about regarding automatic locks. They are entirely unobtrusive. There are many cars (BMW) where the door locks are a pain in the ass.

 

[Norm Peterson]

I don't know what else to tell you, John.

I'm just not ready to let somebody else micro-manage my life to that extent . . . deciding when my car doors will lock and when they will unlock.

If nothing else, autolocking would tend to teach me to never, ever lock the doors when driving any of the other cars that I'd still own that do not have that feature.

Obviously there are people who feel that nobody should ever take risks that by their definition are unnecessary. And I'm sure that there's another whole group of people who get a kick out of having their cars cater to them, like having a chauffeur to do all these menial little tasks for them.


Norm

 

[frank s]

You want little tricks? My '19 Premium convertible has Safe 'n' Smart. I don't know if it's part of the package, but it slows me down to the speed of the car in front of me. Better yet, it keeps me in a traffic lane if I, or the lane, wander a little.

 

[Norm Peterson]

Frank - first thought I'd have if I was in a car and either of those things happened would go something like "what the . . . just broke?".

Hard no.


Norm

 

[Norm Peterson]

I know the above because that's been my exact reaction each of the three times that either traction control or stability control -not sure which - needlessly intervened on the Subarus we've owned. I can live without having that reaction unless something on the car really did break.


Norm

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