Ok...so last night I pull into my local gas station to fill up and a huge electrical storm is brewing in the skies. I do whatI always do...hit the floor latch to pop the gas fill door...get out of the car and place my purse on the drivers seat (with keyless fob inside). I close the drivers door and pump my gas. Partway through pumping the skies open up and a huge bolt of lightning cracks really close by. I finish filling the tank then go to get my purse and the car is LOCKED! WTF! How can it be? I know you can't lock the keys in the car as this is one of the things I played around with when I first got the car and thought it was a great feature. Not so much any more as now I know it is possible. Can someone tell me how the heck this could happen ....and please don't tell me I was having a blond moment. The crap I had to go throught to get my spare was a real pain. Also, I had to use the actual key to open the car door. The ignition worked with the keyless once I was inside. Things that make you go hmmm......

 

Is it possible that you bumped the lock button on the way out of your car? You can lock the doors with the keys in the car...if you press the button.

 

No I'm sure I didn't bump the little button on the door. When I pulled the door to open it I only grabbed the handle, that's why I was totally puzzled. Maybe tonight I will try to lock them in again...(with my spare nearby) ;-)

 

my car locks automatically after the doors are close (it takes about a minute).

 

Lepichchi - I know you can set the fob to automaticaly lock the doors, but mine is not set to. I never lock my car when getting gas or when I park in my garage. I know if I unlock the doors with the fob and then don't open the doors within a short time frame they will automatically lock. I will def have to experiment tonight when I get home.

 

I just finished experimenting with the locks on the doors. If I leave my key in the car and wait a few minutes, the doors do not automatically lock. If I wait a few minutes and then try to lock the door by pushing the little button by the handle the lights flash and the alarm sounds for about 15 seconds. This did not happen yesterday. Besides, I instinctively hit the button a second time and it disarmed and unlocked the car door.
Sooooo I think the nearby bolt of lightning may be what triggered it to lock. Weird, but then I have had lightning blow my telephone and all the ground fault receptacles in my house during a storm...electricity is pretty powerful stuff!

 

I guess it could be something related to the small electrical charge in the air that you get when lightning strikes close; however, it would just disrupt the radio wave for a second or two. This would not have triggered a "Lock" radio signal to be generated.

 

It was the lightning

 

Scientific reasoning behind said diagnosis?

 

Because Lightning is powerful **** and it generates A LOT of EMI. It can easily jack with any electronic equipment nearby.

 

I've seen radio waves bounce 1000x the range in thunder storms.

 

It had to have been the lightning. A nearby strike generates a stronger EM pulse than you might think. Although with your cell phone and GFI experience I suspect you're a believer.

I remember an incident a few years back when I was wakened by the alarms on a parking lot full of cars, all set off by a nearby lightning strike. Very entertaining. The pulse didn't have to match the code from the fob or the signal from a sensor: it just had to smack whatever gets triggered after a signal is received.

Ken

 

 

I will believe that a thunder clap generated by a lightning strike can trigger a car alarm. I can not believe that an EM Pulse generated by a lightning strike is going to make a car go "You know...I should lock the door right now so I am safe."

 

See this wouldn't happen if you all just do like I did and buy teh trunk monkey security system. Trunk Monkeys FTW.

 

That explains it. The trunk monkey was scared by the lightning, and locked himself in.

Ken

 

She tried to replicate the problem but could not. It's only happened one time, and a bolt of lightning was involved.

Perhaps it was electrical interference that triggered the device to send a spurious signal. Perhaps it was the physical concussion of the thunder activating a button or forcing a switch contact.

But whatever the mechanism, given the circumstances the lightning has to be a prime suspect unless the fault can be made to recur by other means.

 

That's like saying your car runs in the morning because you drink coffee.

 

No.

 

My bladder runs in the afternoon if I drink coffee in the morning. So, yeah, that makes sense.

Ken

 

the other day when i headed out some where i had no cd player. i changed mode using the steering wheel and regular controls and it would just go fm1 fm2 am and around with cd. i tried the dash controls i tried eject and load i turned it off and on.


later after completing my errand and started driving back it was working perfectly.


maybe it was lightning.


maybe it was a ghost in the machine.

maybe a glitch in the matrix


maybe a gremlin

not these ones



or these ones



im thinking one of these guys

 

Ok ....thanks for all the theories and suggestions. I decided to go with a trunk monkey security backup system. I'm getting it installed shortly. Trunk monkeys have been around a few years now but never really caught on where I live so I will have to order one online.

As far a the explanations go...who knows maybe it was the lightning.... or maybe there was a glitch in the system just at the same time I happened to leave the key in the car.
I later heard on the local news that a guy was struck by lightning and killed on the other side of town during that same storm. If it was the lightning that caused the glitch, I'm just glad it was my 8 and not me that took the hit.

How many people can say their car did that for them?

 

Trunk monkeys are pretty common around this forum ....