My walk-away door lock failed today!

I have been using the walk-away door lock feature of my Model S since I got my car right before Christmas and have not had any problem with it - until today. I parked in the garage at work, and went inside as usual. At the end of the day, as I walked up to the car, I noticed that my door handles were out (usually they only come out when I get within a foot or two of the car). I opened the door and got in, and was relieved to see that my Canon 5D Mark III camera was still on the floor between my front seats. At first I thought that I must have imagined it, but when I put the car in reverse, the car warned me that my back right door was ajar! Someone actually opened my car and didn't close the door fully. Thank God that nothing was stolen!

Do not trust the walk-away door locks! Software is software, and software always has bugs. For something as important as locking your car, I will never trust some software program that someone wrote that has obviously not been fully tested yet. From now on, I'll take the time to tap my key fob and lock my doors!

Has anyone else had this problem?

Got mine just before Christmas, haven't had this happen, will watch it though.

Are you sure all of the doors were closed completely?

One day I came back to my Model S after work and noticed that the handles were all extended and the puddle lights were on. A quick look made me realize that one of the rear doors was still open. I had opened it to get my back pack, but I never really closed the door, I just let it slowly swing towards closure. I know it's my fault because then I remembered I was fiddling with something in my backpack and then I started walking away while still messing with my backpack, and so I forgot to actually close the door.

Also, you could always just take a look back at the car after walking away a little bit before using the key fob button. You might as well check wether or not the doors locked by themselves before wasting your fob battery.

Actually, more likely what happened is that the car locked and then later it unlocked and the door opened by itself. The following person had it happen twice, and apparently Tesla is going to replace his door handles. So definitely contact Tesla about this:!-Random-Door-Opening-While-Locked!

I most definitely didn't leave a door open. I was by myself and had my bag in the front seat with me. I didn't open the back door all day - and even if I did, I would have opened the back LEFT door. The back RIGHT door was ajar.

Dang. Well like gregv64 mentioned, the problem has been reported before. Hopefully Tesla figures this one out quickly as I would consider it a pretty critical bug.

Bob - This has happened to me once, I believe as described above where the doors locked and then the right rear one popped open. When I got in my car to go home from work, the door showed as ajar though I hadn't messed with it.

I've had my Model S now 4 weeks, and have had some issues with the walk away auto-lock feature as well. However, after learning the quirks of the car I now know when I need to manual lock. When the following occurs, I know I have to reboot the 17" screen, or manually lock the car when I leave:
1. rear-view camera doesn't pop up in reverse.
2. power graph freezes in time and shows no activity
3. google maps freeze and show no real-time movement

If the above occurs, I know that the auto-lock feature won't work and I will have to manually lock the car, or reboot. I find that a simple reboot seems to fix everything for a few driving sessions. Was having to reboot every day, but now seems to be a little more stable requiring reboot every other day.

@olanmills +1

This is the worst bug in the car IMO. Worse than it not starting. It's like your front door opening all by itself while you are at work. IMO Lock that doesn't open with a right key is less bad than lock that opens without any key.

In the 4.2 update notes one of the changes is that it "improves ... key and door handle function." It's probably too much to hope that this is already fixed, but apparently a lot of the other voodoo software issues have gone away.

Maybe it's just because I live in Oakland, but my initial thought was, "you left a Canon 5D Mark III in the front seat??!!".

Not too many towns left in the US where that's a good idea.

Nevertheless, this is definitely a troubling problem. Thanks for posting and raising our attention to it.

My walk away door locks never worked when I took my Model S home until I did a full LCD and HUD reset one day. Worked since, I am also on the original software firmware, the 1.13.x

On 4.1 after plugging into the charging port and walking away, the handles will stay out for over a minute on occasion. This is compared to the more rapid retraction that occurs when you walk away from the car normally. It's no fun standing 20 feet from the car in a 0 degree wind chill waiting for the handles to retract. Looking forward to 4.2

All to avoid the horrible hassle of pushing the FOB roof button once? Curiouser and curiouser.

Brian - The point is that they paid extra for the proximity features and they are not rock-solid yet.

I think their spirit in posting it here is less about grousing and more about bright-lining it for TM to remedy.

I expect these more subtle errors will all get outed and fixed over the coming months. There is already evidence of that in the releases to date.

I meant standing in the cold till the automatic locking kicked in rather than push the FOB. It seems to me, actually, that you should regard the walk-away as a failsafe, just for when you forget to FOB-lock or your hands are full.

Sound recognition app with sense for someone muttering "I need more hands..." with fob nearby: pop! Doors open/close depending which was the state of the doors when those magical words were uttered. Maybe just trunk if it senses fob directly behind.

Maybe face recognition too, so that you only need to look at the car and it makes a wild guess that you want doors to open/close.

Why not go for lip-reading?

Our Model S (running 4.1 - 1.19.31) self opened the right front door last weekend while it (fortunately) was inside the garage.

I thought it might be related to the last-resort door opening system that opens that same door if one places the key-fob at the base of the windshield. After I read about different doors opening on other cars, I concluded the fob theory was incorrect and probably a coincidence.

I'm in touch with the closest service center (5 hour drive away) and they promised to pull logs from our car via wireless and get back to us on a course of action.

On an up note, my auto locking has worked flawlessly since I got the car. Sorry to those who are struggling.

Don't have my car yet, so wondering what are the visual and/or audible signals that tell you the car locked. I had several occaisions where I left my Miata unlocked and since had to learn the idiosyncrasies of just what would lock the car and what wouldn't. I.e., don't leave the "zone" before the door closes all the way, close the driver's door last, don't pop the trunk and then close the door, etc. But the key thing was to hardwire my brain to look for the lights to flash or hear the double beep. So wondering what does the S do to tell you it's locked (at least until it changes it's mind later apparently).

Good question. The only time the car didn't lock for me was because one of the doors wasn't properly closed. I realised because all the lights were on in the car and the handles did not retract. Haven't repeated this to test it.

There is no beep, and I don't even think the lights flash. I think they just go out. Having said that I have the lights set to be on all the time. If you have the lights off maybe they flash??? Will need to check.

The most reliable indication I've found that you've closed all the doors properly is that the center screen goes blank. Then, one minute after the last door is closed, the parking lights flash and the door handles recede.

So, as a rule of thumb, take a quick glance at the center screen before you walk away from your car, and if it is still on, you'll want to check to see which door is open. If you like, you can wait the extra minute or hit the top button on your fob to make sure the car locks, but I've found it reliable as long as I see the center screen go out.

vin 1094 no troubles with auto lock v4.1 1.19.31

Heard of an issue with the doors, esp. front passenger, related to air pressure seal within the door jamb itself. Too tight a seal?

Look. It's a $100000 car that we are buy in good faith and with confidence , a lot of trust, and trying to do the right thing. There are only so many excuses and this stuff has to work. Quit drinking the kool-aid and be realistic! You can't market it if it's bull!! The is a moral obligation here on Tesla and this is pretty off-putting. This forum stuff is soooo full,of Kool-aid!!!! If you are supposed to walk away from the car and the door is supposed to lock than you should be able to walk away from the car and the door should lock!!!! Duh!!!! If winter driving conditions were tested than release the data, not a 90 sec video!!!! You shouldn't have to look to the east, raise your right hand, do the hoki-poki, and tap the screen randomly to make something work!!! Enough is enough!!!!

You obviously have no experience with software. The hoki-poli is a basic required user skill.


It's just a bit much you know?

typo: poki

You obviously have no experience with typing your own text

@drp: Um, I don't recall anybody saying that this is correct behavior, so I'm not sure who your rant is aimed at. Obviously this is a fault in the car, and people are trying to gather information. Enough is enough of what exactly?

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