Door Lock Trouble, 2007 Opt 3

From time to time the remote door lock/unlock system has totally baffled me. Last incident was when I parked the car in a Wal*Mart Supercenter for a day trip. All normal car systems were turned off as usual and I exited with no keys left in the car and locked the car with the remote--nothing. It acted like it was dead with no beep or light flash. I opened and closed all the doors and was getting in a hurry because the bus was waiting--still nothing--so I left it in some anger and frustration.

Upon returning and finding the car still there I noticed that the doors were still unlocked--at least the driver's door was as I could see the red indicator visible from the opposite side of the car. I used the remote to see if I could lock the car properly again and it worked fine--the car was now locked.

Does anyone have any idea what got screwed up? Why would the remote be unable to lock the car one minute but hours later work perfectly fine?

Since 9 out of 10 times I have the remote handy I'm thinking I should just disable the auto-unlock sensing part of the lock system on the front and truck door handles/no remote needed to start electronics thing-a-ma-bob system? But I don't think this caused the inability to lock the driver's door.

I'm also thinking I should practice how to manually lock the car rather then leaving it unlocked.

Thanks for reading--so why wouldn't the dam_ doors lock!? Oh yeah, I wasn't looking at the remote funny and clicking on the unlock button by mistake. Besides when you unlock the car beeps and flashes twice and I wasn't aware of any warnings from any system--nothing.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(richard schumacher @ Oct 29 2007, 11:08 AM) [snapback]532023[/snapback]</div>

Forgot all about the door buttons. I don't normally use them at all. I'll keep that in mind next time. I have only two other keys on the remote BUT I do carry the spare fob in my purse among some other metal objects in the purse. That morning I put the purse inside my day pack with my digital camera--turned off. I also had my portable GPS running in my pocket. When I returned everything was as it was when I left except the GPS was off. Before there was one car parked next to me--not a Prius--that was already locked when I tried locking my car--and failed. On returning that car was unlocked and driving off before I successfully locked my car. I just tested the scenario in my garage with the second fob in my purse, the digital camera turned off and the GPS turned on in various positions and the doors still locked normally. I wonder if the proximity of the other car might be the culprit? That or other things were just lined up right and cannot be duplicated?

Thanks.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Tickwood @ Oct 29 2007, 01:25 PM) [snapback]532082[/snapback]</div>

Always interesting ideas. I'll go back to the same spot and park again tonight and other times in the days ahead and see if it locks or not. Thanks. I have had other odd things happen to the locks before--but I don't remeber the specifics now. Once in my garage and once in the Toyota dealer's parking lot. No problems there recently but now this new spot.