'03 Accord V6 locks out driver?

Wife drives a '03 Accord V6. She is annoyed about some of the
"features." I could not find any information in the Manual that could
help her.

1. Doors lock after she leaves the car, without her activating
the remote control;
2. The interior lights don't stay on when she opens the driver
door for a prolonged period of time;
3. The horn sounds when she clicks the second time on the remote
and the alarm is activated - she wished that it made a quieter sound
or no sound at all;
4. She has found no way to turn off the Navigator - she is
concerned that once the Nav is on, there is no way of turning it off -
she finds herself in some areas of the city where she does not want to
attract attention with the Nav. Stopping an restarting the car (an not
clicking on the OK) is sometimes NOT an option.

I can't help her. The Prelude my son drives (inherited from me) is not
that fancy, and the '04 TL that I drive allows programming for
everything.

Please help.

TIA

Best,

Andrew

 

Broken. Fix it--it's under warranty. BUT: step one should always be,
look in the owner's manual. It gives complete and exhaustive
information on how the locking system is supposed to behave. Make sure
you aren't doing something wrong. My guess is you've never even cracked
the owner's manual. Do you even know where it is?

See above. On my Honda van, the interior lights go out after 3 or so
minutes. That's a FEATURE, not a problem; it's outlined in that owner's
manual you seem to want to avoid.

See above. You know that owner's manual? It's pretty clear on all of
this stuff. Let me ask you: why is she clicking on the remote a second
time? There's no need; the first click locks the car. The
only--ONLY--reason for clicking a second time is to get the horn to beep
for confirmation that the doors are locked and the alarm system is
active. The second click does nothing more. If she simply wants the
car to lock silently, she should click the remote once. If she doesn't
want the horn to beep, she shouldn't click it as second time at all.

What does she *think* she's getting with that second click?

What does the owner's manual say?

I sound like your mother here, a broken record.

How did you find out about that "programming for everything"?

 

That sounds like a bug in the system. She should have the dealer look at
it. It is an intentional feature that when you first unlock the doors with
the remote, if a door (any door) is not opened within 20 seconds, they will
automatically re-lock, but that doesn't sound like the problem she is
having.

The alarm activates the first time you push the lock button. The horn
sounding on the second press is only for the purpose of reassuring yourself
that it heard you the first time. Tell her to only push it once if she
doesn't want to hear the horn. I don't see where there is a problem here.
This is a pretty well thought out feature and lets you have it pretty much
both ways (horn or no horn).

I agree this is an irritating quirk of the Honda Nav systems. Nothing can
be done about it. It is probably the only thing about the nav where Nissan
had a better idea - they have a display on/off button that blacks it out at
any time.

 

All these things are normal operation. She can turn off the Navi, just read
the manual.

 

Nope, normal. My Accord does this. The car thinks you walked away without
locking it.

 

mine did that the other day,but yesterday after golfing I noticed it was
unlocked when we returned to put out clubs away.
Hmmm...not that got me curious.

 

Nope, normal. My Accord does this. The car thinks you walked away without
locking it.[/QUOTE]

That must be controllable by the owner, then. No way does a car lock
itself without some positive action on the driver/owner's part.

 

That must be controllable by the owner, then. No way does a car lock
itself without some positive action on the driver/owner's part.
[/QUOTE]
I have a 2000 that will relock itself if I don't open the door after
unlocking it with in 30 seconds. Does it do this with the key in the
ignition? It's not suppose to active with the key in the ignition.

Randy

 

"Elmo P. Shagnasty" wrote

Sad, but some will do this. I once drove a rental Grand Prix in 1999 and it
did just that. It was *very* frustrating, especially since it had no remote.

 

That must be controllable by the owner, then. No way does a car lock
itself without some positive action on the driver/owner's part.[/QUOTE]

My 04 will relock itself if it is unlocked and the door is not opened in
about 1 minute. Even if I lower the windows.....

 

No, it won't (but have a spare just in case when you try it!)

 

My 04 will relock itself if it is unlocked and the door is not opened in
about 1 minute. Even if I lower the windows.....[/QUOTE]

That's standard Honda behavior. Nice.

But the original claim is that "doors lock after she leaves the car,
without her activating the remote control". That's BROKEN. On a new
car, one should take that to the dealer to be fixed (after reading the
fine owner's manual to make sure one isn't doing something wrong).

 

I am not sure what she's doing. But from what she tells me, if she
takes the keys out of the ignition, and closes (not locks) the doors,
the doors lock all by themselves. According to the manual, this is NOT
a "feature." I told her to take it up with the dealer, just in case
she does some funky sequence which creates this scenario. As she tells
me, it doesn't make any sense. I leave my keys on the console in the
Acura in the garage. It would really piss me up if I had to dig up the
spare just to get into my car in the mornings.

Yup. sure do.

This particular issue is not addressed in the manual. You mean to say
that it stands to reason that if you are loading or unloading your car
with only the driver's door open the interior lights go off, so you
have to un/load in the dark? If the passenger door is open, the light
stays on indefinitely. It is not logical.

You are absolutely correct. Older alarms (which my dad has been
installing for many years), required a second click to set the alarm.
This is clearly not the case in the recent Honda cars. Thanks for
clarifying it for us.

With the Acura, I click the second time to turn off the lights
immediately, although I don't have to, since they will turn off after
the programmed 30 seconds anyway. Force of habit, I guess.

Right you are. The Navigator manual is quite clear. Setup/Display Off,
either manually or with voice command.

There is a nifty little screen on the a secondary display in the dash
that WALKS you through the set-up: seats, mirrors, interior lights,
doors, radio stations, headlights, etc. All are adjustable and keyed
to the remote you use to unlock the car. For instance if I (Driver 1)
put the car in Park, all doors unlock. In Drive, none do, unless the
doors are opened manually. Interior lights stay on if any doors are
opened. They come on if I unlock the doors. Driver 2's configuration
can be completely different. Didn't need the manual. It's intuitive
and simple.

Thanks for the cogent reply. Got me looking at her manual and I put
some stickies pointing to the relevant passages.


Best,

Andrew

 

Thanks. I think you are right.

We were falling back on habits with older alarms. Thanks for the
pointer.

It is mentioned in the (separate) Navigator manual. It is buried among
a list of Setup commands. It is simply: Setup/Display Off, in either
manual or voice command modes.

I am grateful for you taking the time to help.


Best,

Andrew

 

[sheepishly] Clearly, you are absolutely correct about the Nav.
Setup/Display Off.

Thanks for driving me to the Nav manual.


Best,

Andrew

 

Glad to hear they finally did something about that. There is no such
command on my '00 TL Nav.

 

That must be controllable by the owner, then. No way does a car lock
itself without some positive action on the driver/owner's part.
[/QUOTE]

Nope, it does. Get in the car start it. Shut it off and remove the key.
Get out and shut the door without locking it. Watch for 30 seconds.

 

This is normal behavior. I've had an Acura RSX and an '04 Accord and they
both do this IF: You shut off the engine, remove the key, get out and shut
the door...it will lock automatically after 30 seconds or so. I found this
out the hard way with my RSX when I left the keys on the passenger seat and
got out to check something...fortunately, I was in my driveway

 

Nope, it does. Get in the car start it. Shut it off and remove the key.
Get out and shut the door without locking it. Watch for 30 seconds.[/QUOTE]

And that must be controllable by the driver, no question.

 

I would like to see the marketing survey that convinced them that anybody
actually wants this feature...