[judyn]

The 2018 Kia Niro auto door locking is driving us crazy! Is this something they can and will disable completely at the dealer? I am a woman who uses a purse which I put in the back seat. I want to be able to turn off the car, get out, and open a back door without further action on my part. I understand people who live in a city, maybe especially women, want auto door locking, but I really do not need it. I am capable of locking the doors if I want to. SO, I found a setting that makes all the doors unlocked MOST of the time. However, most of the time is almost worse than never because I really dislike getting out of the car, closing the front door and discover I can't open the back door to get my purse. We cannot figure out what we do wrong when we discover the doors are not unlocked.

The settings we have is
Automatically lock - enable on shift
No disable option. I use shift because the locks are so loud that they scare me if I'm driving (I thought the car had decided to fall apart!), so I figure it's best to get it over with before I start driving.

Automatic Unlock - On Shift to P
Obviously this is not always working...
Or maybe the car is relocking? I read some cars like to do that. A scarey thought, seems to me, well, I guess not so scarey because I presume the car wouldn't do that if a key were in the car?

Are there aother settings that can be done by the dealer that I might like?

 

[yticolev]

All doors should unlock when you shift to Park. Not doing it? Warranty issue. In the meantime, a simple double push of the door unlock button unlocks all doors. As does a double push of the key fob unlock button. A double push on the outside driver's door handle button will unlock all doors as well. If the car is locked and you open the front passenger door, all doors will unlock.

 

[judyn]

Of course I know how to manuallly unlock the doors -- I just don't want that extra step. Plus I never know if the doors are going to be locked or unlocked. On the Prius V it was a "simple" set of arcane button pushes and locking was disabled completely forever. At least I would like the car to do the same thing every time. Unfortunately, we don't know the sequence of events that results in the doors not unlocking. We would prefer locking disabled, so we'll contact the dealer about that.

It is true that we have a problem remembering to put the car in Park before turning it off. The Prius V has no transmission and although it has a park, it doesn't have a big gear shift nor do you have to do anything before pushing the off button. It automagically goes to Park when you push the off button. Both my husband and I have trouble remembering to put the car in Park befoer stopping it. That does seem to confuse the car a lot and we usually put it in park, start it again, then thrn it off properly. I was very sad to see that huge gear shifter on the Kia. We had gotten used to nice storage space in that area of the car... Is Kia shifting electronic? I suppose though a lot of people would be upset not to have a big gear shifter lever?

 

[yticolev]

Truly a George Jetson nightmare. One more button push!

Hopefully you find the benefits of the Niro to outweigh the Prius V. Like gas mileage, extra safety features, good looks. Lots of small things I don't like as well, I've had to adapt. Way, way better than my last car in most areas.

 

[myronbg]

I can't imagine what happens when you might change from an Apple computer / smart phone to a Google OS or Android smart phone or in fact, if you have a smart phone, if there is an operating or other update. Almost everything that you're used to is changed.
Cars are different, even from year to year, as designers incorporate various "features" which some owners like and some dislike especially some of the "required" safety changes.
I'm sure you automatically put your foot on the break in order to start the car. It's another extra step safety "feature".

 

[judyn]

Looks like this forum is full of snotty remarks rather than helpful information. I had a serious question. Goodbye.

 

[yticolev]

And you received serious answers. Other than a clear attempt at humor, I don't see any snarkiness. Kind of like commenting about first world problems to put the seriousness of this into some perspective. For snarky, how about inquiring if this is your "first time online"?

I suspect the main cause of your issue is not remembering to shift to park (like 95% of all cars but not the Prius of course). Muscle memory dies hard. I did the same thing based on my manual shift car. I stop and turn the car off, but it doesn't actually turn off and complains when I try to exit. Took at least a couple months before I stopped doing that - only do it occasionally now.

I checked my own door lock preferences, set to auto unlock when I turn the car off rather than park. That might be the default setting as I don't remember changing it. You could see if that works more consistently for you, I don't see much difference between the two in real life, although it might be safer not to have doors unlock at a traffic light when you put it in park - car jacking is pretty rare I think except in the movies.

 

[Rdub]

Seems like people are missing the point.

I also am concerned that the Niro Phev appears to have no way to defeat the auto-locking feature for a different reason. I keep my cars for an average of over 12 years. If the door locks are going to be actuated twice every time I get in the car, they are going to receive a tremendous amount of unnecessary wear over that period. I currently also have a 2006 Hyundai Sonata, which has been quite reliable and is part of the reason I went for the Kia in spite of it being an incredibly complicated vehicle. However, the rear passenger door lock has failed WITHOUT auto-door locking. And the replacement estimate is over $300 (yes, that was from an independent repair shop that I trust. I checked and the part is $115 and it's a bear to get the door apart). I don't see the logic of forcing a garaged car that operates in a safe rural environment to overuse the door locks.


BTW, another issue with the auto-locking is my daughter can't get out of the car when I drop her off at school unless I put the car in Park, which of course unlocks and then relocks all four locks. Either the safety Nazi's are working overtime at Kia or they just flat out missed this since it is available in other Kia's and I found an owner's page via Google that says it's there in the Niro. Since it was just the one page, not sure if it was a Euro-spec one or if the non-PHEV version has this. But there's no reason why KIA shouldn't offer a defeat option, and lots of reasons they should.

 

[brandent]

I think you answered your own question. Not putting it in park, although easy to do, is going to mess everything up.

 

[brandent]

And Florida. Happens all the time

 

[ChrisAndersen]

But how do you unlock the door without taking help from any certified expert i want to know because i want to get it done by own and don't want to spend much on hiring locksmith nearby.

 

[yticolev]

But how do you unlock the door without taking help from any certified expert i want to know because i want to get it done by own and don't want to spend much on hiring locksmith nearby.

Are you asking how to get into your car when you have lost your key?

 

[JacobWatson]

Well, i also have the same question to know what the thing you want to convey about hiring a locksmith expert. Please reply so that everyone will get to know.

 

[Johnxyz]

Would not expect poster to reply his post is 2 months old. If the question is how to get in a locked car this could depend on your model. If your model has the KIA UVO app it is as simple as opening up your smartphone and navigating to the KIA UVO app and hitting door unlock.

In most cases if not all, cars have a emergency enter lock cylinder assy in one of the doors to open with a key if your keyfob battery is dead. If you can't get a battery for your key fob or you have lost your fob and key you will need a locksmith or Dealer to help unless you resort to breaking a window.

This post could serve as a reminder that your Key ID Number that came with the vehicle when new should be stored in a safe place so you can give it to a Dealer to program a new fob if necessary. If you don't have that information things can get complicated and expensive.

When you think it through you don't want it to be easy to get in a locked car without your fob or key, you want it to be as hard as possible for a thief who doesn't have a key or fob to enter the vehicle!

 

[Gerd_NL]

... and how to get out of your locked car is described in your car handbook, that you should have read when you got your car!

 

[WesleyBoyle]

Yes absolutely, when you bought a car, these things are written in the handbook. There is no concept to hire locksmith here.

 

[Gerd_NL]

If you have lost your fob, why you do not use the second one, or did you get only one???