Central Locking

[Ste]

Hey,

Since the cold mornings are now starting and you have to do the dreaded de-icing of the car at stupid o'clock in the morning I was wonder if anyone could help me out.

What I use to do in the past on my previous cars was, start the car up put the heating on full and the heated windscreens and then lock the car manually with the spare key and go back inside with a brew for 10 minutes allowing the car to automatically de-ice and be nice and warm ready for my journey to work.

I've noticed there is no manual locking on the doors, is there anyway you can lock the doors any other way while the engine is running?

This then made me wonder what happens if one day for some unknown reason my car battery has gone dead, how would I open the car doors if its there is no way to manually unlock the car with the key? I'm sure there is a simple explanation and I've probably not noticed something very simple.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

[Cuprabob]

If you check manual you will see that there is a cover that can be removed on the driver's door handle to gain acess to locking barrel that can be opened using the key.

[Ste]

Thanks for that.

I kinda of had a feeling that will be the case after I sent the post. I'll have to start checking the manual instead of being lazy.

Cheers again

[Murrdohk]

Thanks Cuprabob! I was always wondering that myself! Unfortunately my manual is German but luckily my German's starting to come along pretty well so I am able to make out most things in it now

[RW1]

Well you know, there's always something on YouTube! Stumbled into this yesterday lol

[youtube][/youtube]

C.

[Murrdohk]

Thanks for that video RW1...that is pretty sweet unbelievably easy!

The locking mechanism went out in my hatch a while back and after a lot of hunting, I found the manual release for it...was a pain in the rear to get to though. After that, I figured the doors would probably have a manual release as well but I just never took the time to hunt for it

[bitmadmax]

I haven't tried this (purely because my spare keys are kept off site), but can you not still lock the car by remote with the other key if the engine is running?

[Murrdohk]

cakebandit wrote:

I haven't tried this (purely because my spare keys are kept off site), but can you not still lock the car by remote with the other key if the engine is running?

That's a good question...I can't be 100% sure on this one but I'm gonna say that was one of the things I tried out when I first got my car and it worked. That was a while back and I'm kind of fuzzy on it though so I am curious if anyone knows the answer to that one too!

My old e36 BMW had a feature where I could start the car, turn on the headlights and remove the key from the ignition so I could lock it up while it was running. It would continue to run like this until I turned off the headlights at which time the car would turn off as well...wouldn't mind seeing that feature on my Rocco as well

[jimma1983]

A lot of the rental cars in Canada have a remote starter, where you can use the key fob to run the engine for 15 mins to heat the vehicle before driving off. With the winters getting colder each year, that's something that would be a good idea over here too.