Hello,

I noticed today when I was driving that my mini (2003 non s) was automatically unlocking the doors. I searched google about this and the only thing I could find was that Minis have a crash sensor that automatically unlocks the doors. I tried calling the Mini Service people but they couldn’t tell me what it was unless they actually saw the car. The problem is I live about 1 hour away from the Mini Dealership that services the car and I am usually working at the times I can take it in. Has anyone heard about this before? Any information will about the topic will be extremely helpful.

Thanks

 

It locks the doors when you reach 13-15mph. If it's really unlocking while driving I have no idea, it should only unlock when you pull the key out of the ignition.

 

Well thats the strange thing the doors unlock. You can hear the clicking sound as the mini tried to unlock the doors even when they are already unlocked.

 

Well, after exploring as much as my knowledge allows me to, I figure that the problem is electrical and that somewhere there is a little wire or something thats forcing the car to unlock. I guess I wont know for sure until I take the car in. However, after I find out what it is I will post it here in case someone in the future has my same problem!

 

That self door locking feature on cars has always bugged me. Why do we need our doors locked when we drive? Is it really any safer in an accident? If I lived in a less friendly place it might have some merit. But where I live, a car jacking is highly unlikely. I'd rather have my doors stay unlocked.

I had a Dodge that locked its doors whenever you drove it too. On the Dodge you go through some sort of routine to disable the feature ( I forget it exactly, it is sort of like turning the key off and on three times then turning the lights on then off, or something equally absurd.) Haven't figured out if the Mini has a way to disable the auto door locking feature yet. Giessy, it wouldn't bother me a bit if my doors unlocked themselves.

A friend told me a funny story concerning a VW and it's self-locking doors. It was snowing out and this lady in her VW came around the corner in front of his house too fast and accidentally ran up onto my friend's sidewalk. The car became just high centered enough to where it wouldn't go anywhere. The lady got out to see what was going on and to see if she could get un-stuck. She shut the door on her car. Well, she had left the car in gear. The wheels were still spinning, and apparently it was spinning fast enough to where the doors re-locked themselves, locking her out! Just to raise the anxiety level, the lady's baby was locked in it's car seat inside the car. She went to my friend's house and made a frantic call to a locksmith to come re-open the door. While they were waiting for the locksmith, the car was trying to grab traction and take off, so my friend and this lady had to shovel a bunch of snow in the front of the car to keep it from taking off on them. Finally the locksmith got there and got the lady back into her car, rescued the sleeping baby (who could have cared less about the whole ordeal) and everyone lived happily ever after (or as happy as one can be with a VW)

 

If the airbags go off the doors unlock automatically. You can have that feature disabled at the dealership and most of them won't charge you for it. Almost all of the MINI's functions are adjustable. I'll see if I can dig up a full list of programmable options.

 

cougsfan,

That was an interesting story, in a situation like that it seems dangerous to have self locking doors. In my case the mini tried to unlock the doors every 10 seconds, and not only that but even if the doors were unlocked, the mini kept trying to unlock them. What ended up happening was that during the first night of the mini doing this, the locking mechanism blew out. The following morning the locks would not work unless i manually unlocked the doors with the key.

I took it to the dealer and the replaced the lock mechanism for all doors except for the fuel cap door, which they had to order the part because they did not have it. They never really told me what the problem was or how it occurred.

Thanks everyone for their input, it has been helpful!

 

Good to hear you got it fixed.

 

Ok, ready for another story about doors and hatches locking? This is one that happened to me just a couple days ago...

I was messing around with my keys one evening, fitting the mini key to a key chain with other keys, and hiding my spare plastic key under the car. By the time I was done screwing around, it appears the doors were unlocked and the rear hatch was locked.

The next morning I was getting ready to go to work. I had my sports bag with me, as I was going to play racquetball after work. I went to put the sports bag in the Mini's trunk, but the hatch was locked, and I remebered that my keys were still on the kitchen table. So I set the bag down behind the car, and went back into the house to get the keys. After I got my keys, my wife got my attention and we talked a while about several things. By then I had to hurry to keep from being late for work.

I jumped in the Mini, started it up and backed out of the garage. After moving several feet, I heard a scrapping noise. I knew immediately what it was. I had backed over my sports bag!

I pulled forward, left the car running and got out and retrieved my bag. I immediately smelled gas. I thought maybe the lawn mower gas can had tipped over, which our dog has been known to tip over, and I went to check it. It was OK. By the time I got back to the car, it was setting in a huge puddle of gas! I looked under the mini, and gas was not dripping, it was shooting out in a big stream!

So I shut the car off and couldn't even look under the car to see the problem without getting soaked in gas. I could see enough that the leak had stopped. So being the nice and thoughtful guy that my wife married, I conned my wife into figuring out what to do with the gas mess, while I pushed her car out of the garage befre starting it, and took off to work (I was late for a big meeting, you know, and sometimes I trust her common sense more than I do mine, like when dealing with spilt gas).

My wife dutiful swept the gas out into the drive way where it evaporated and cleaned it up pretty good. She even pushed the Mini outside to clean under it. What a good lady! (but we still smell gas in the house a few days later though).

I looked under the car that evening. It seems my brand new expensive racquet ball racquet had done the seemingly impossible task of hooking into the fuel feed line, and broke it's quick disconnect fitting out of the fuel pump. (It probably couldn't be done on purpose if you tried all day.) The line seperated and the fuel pump was pumping full flow to atmosphere.

To add to my woe, my new racquet ball racquet was broken!

A quick look around town at car dealers and parts houses could not come up with a similar fitting. I contacted my Mini dealer (who is 200 miles away). As you might imagine, they don't have a big demand those quick disconnect fittings, and don't stock them. They are getting me one as soon as possible.

I fabricated a temporary clamp that I have a lot of confidence in in the mean time, so I am back on the road, but just a bit more humbled my my lack of perfection.

Cougsfan

 

Haha, no one is perfect, my man. I don't know how much I'd be driving around with it rigged up though. And, how did it run if it wasn't getting gas?