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Is there a way to open the passenger door first?

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Main Forum' started by rslitman, Mar 2, 2008.

  1. rslitman

    rslitman Junior Member

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    Scenario - Cold day, another person is with you who is going to ride in the front passenger seat, approach is being made in a direction in which the passenger side door is going to be reached first, passenger doesn't want to wait in the cold while you go around to the other side to unlock the car.

    Old way, with all of our other cars - Just put the key in the outside lock of the passenger side front door, turn it, and the door will open.

    With the Prius - ?

    Someone told us to hit the unlock button on the remote twice in succession. This didn't seem to work for us.

    Thanks for any help you can give me on this.
     
    #1 rslitman, Mar 2, 2008
  2. joerdie

    joerdie New Member

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    My wife is usually my passenger; I use the opportunity to open the door for her. Then I walk around. If I have the infant car seat, (with the infant of course.) I usually open the passenger door and immediately open the rear passenger side door. Once the passenger door is opened, all of the doors are unlocked.
     
    #2 joerdie, Mar 2, 2008
  3. Betelgeuse

    Betelgeuse Active Member

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    As joerdie suggests, you should be able to use the "Smart Entry" feature to open up the (front) passenger side door. Just walk up to the car with the fob in your pocket and touch the inside of the door handle. This should unlock the Passenger's door (and, if your smart key system is set to the default settings, will actually unlock all of the doors). Of course, the car doesn't actually know who's pocket the fob is in, so if you coordinate it right, the passenger should be able to open the car door on their own (assuming the fob is in range).

    The double-clicking on the remote should work too. In that situation, the car should beep twice; on the first click you'll unlock the driver's door and on the second click you'll unlock all of the others.
     
    #3 Betelgeuse, Mar 2, 2008
  4. rslitman

    rslitman Junior Member

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    joerdie writes:

    I use the opportunity to open the [passenger] door for her.

    My response:

    That's great, but how do you get the passenger door open first? That's what I'm posting here to find out.

    Betelgeuse writes:

    Just walk up to the car with the fob in your pocket and touch the inside of the door handle. This should unlock the Passenger's door (and, if your smart key system is set to the default settings, will actually unlock all of the doors).

    My response:

    This is not happening for us, on either Prius. I guess we'll have to look in the manual to see how to set the system to the default settings. If it turns out we do have it set properly, I'll be back for more help.

    Thanks so far for the answers.
     
    #4 rslitman, Mar 2, 2008
  5. Betelgeuse

    Betelgeuse Active Member

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    Well, regardless of the settings, the front passenger door should always unlock when you grip the inside of that handle. A few things to check:

    1. Are you sure your car has the smart key system (SKS)? In other words, can you unlock the car and start it up without ever taking the remote out of your pocket? Since you list your car as a Package 5, you must have SKS; is the toggle button (under the steering wheel) off?

    2. If you do have SKS and it's on, can you unlock the driver's side door via the smart key system (SKS) by touching the inside of the driver's door handle? If so, there's no setting I'm aware of that could turn off the SKS to just the passenger's side door.

    3. Some have reported that very thick gloves can interfere with the SKS sensing your hand on the door. Perhaps you should try opening with a bare hand?
     
    #5 Betelgeuse, Mar 2, 2008
  6. okiebutnotfrommuskogee

    okiebutnotfrommuskogee Senior Member

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    If you have SKS you can also unlock all of the doors if you are behind the car by one light press on the hatch latch. One press only, the second one will open the hatch.
     
    #6 okiebutnotfrommuskogee, Mar 2, 2008
  7. rslitman

    rslitman Junior Member

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    I just want to follow up to say that I have gotten the hang of things now and have not had a door opening problem in several days now. Thanks for all of the suggestions.
     
    #7 rslitman, Mar 6, 2008
  8. paprius4030

    paprius4030 My first Prius

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    I believe that if you open the passenger door with the remote(hitting the button twice) that you have a time span to open the door. If you don't open the door fairly soon it will relock on it's own. That seems to happen with ours on occasion.
     
    #8 paprius4030, Mar 7, 2008
  9. steveholtam

    steveholtam Junior Member

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    The manual has instructions for programming how the SKS system opens which doors. Default was when the driver opens his door using the auto-sense feature, only that door opens. That annoyed me, so I changed it so that when the driver door is open via auto-sense, all other doors open as well. This should be default on a four door car...

    Or double press the button. But that requires me to reach in my pockets and find the key. I prefer to just use the auto-sense technology. :D
     
    #9 steveholtam, Mar 7, 2008
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