Locked in the Car and Unable to get Out - Food for Thought

   / Locked in the Car and Unable to get Out - Food for Thought #1  

Gordon Gould

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Apr 1, 2007
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NorthEastern, VT
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Kubota L3010DT, Kubota M5640SUD, Dresser TD7G Dozer
This happened to my wife's friend today. She is elderly and lives alone in a rural spot. She got in the car to go to their little weekly rug hooking session at the town library. Her habit is to lock the doors. She started cranking the car over and it wouldn't start. She cranked until the battery was totally flat. The the doors would not unlock w/o battery power. Panic... Finally she thought to call the dealer to ask how to get out. You can't !!! The dealer came over and jumped the battery before she could get out. Can you believe it.

It is going to be below zero tonight. Wonder if she was in a no cell service zone of which there are many around here or she had no phone with her. No good.

gg
 
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   / Locked in the Car and Unable to get Out - Food for Thought #2  
That is scary, I didn't realize that you couldn't override the door locks with the inside handle.
 
   / Locked in the Car and Unable to get Out - Food for Thought #4  
I’ve never seen a vehicle without a manual lock lever. That sounds like a really poor design.
 
   / Locked in the Car and Unable to get Out - Food for Thought #5  
Lordy..Lordy....What model car was that?
 
   / Locked in the Car and Unable to get Out - Food for Thought #7  
I find this story really hard to believe. A truck has to have an emergency unlatch from the inside and your telling me there’s a car door you can’t open? How do you drain a car battery completely with a starter? At the point the starter doesn’t turn you still have power to here the solenoid clicking, you don’t have enough power for power locks? What make of car was this?
 
   / Locked in the Car and Unable to get Out - Food for Thought #8  
That's new one on me :oops: never gave it thought.
 
   / Locked in the Car and Unable to get Out - Food for Thought #9  
This happened to my wife's friend today. She is elderly and lives alone in a rural spot. She got in the car to go to their little weekly rug hooking session at the town library. Her habit is to lock the doors. She started cranking the car over and it wouldn't start. She cranked until the battery was totally flat. The the doors would not unlock w/o battery power. Panic... Finally she thought to call the dealer to ask how to get out. You can't !!! The dealer came over and jumped the battery before she could get out. Can you believe it.

It is going to be below zero tonight. Wonder if she was in a no cell service zone of which there are many around here or she had no phone with her. No good.

gg
Luckily she had enough hand strength to pull the hood latch to pop the hood for the dealer to jump the battery. Jon
 
   / Locked in the Car and Unable to get Out - Food for Thought
  • Thread Starter
#10  
Don't know the model or year but my wife has a Honda CRV and there is no manual door unlock. Everything that is programable like door lock is run off sensors and thru the computer. No direct mechanical linkages.

Who knows what a computer does when the voltage goes to almost 0 for a while then returns to a lower than normal value ???

gg
 
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