Crazy door locks

I'm trying to figure out if our rental car is possessed or if this is somehow normal.

We have a Jeep Wrangler for a week. I cannot figure out the door locks.

You know the button on the side of the driver and passenger doors that you can hit to lock/unlock all the doors? It doesn't work. If we want to lock/unlock all the doors at once, we have to use the fob.

Beyond that, the doors lock/unlock in unpredictable ways depending on what other doors are open/shut.

For example, this morning I needed to take DD for a haircut. I used the fob to unlock all the doors. I opened the driver's door to put my purse down, then opened the back door to let her in. When I opened that door, all the doors locked. Luckily I still had the fob with me.

Then when we got to our destination, I turned off the car and all the doors unlocked automatically. Cool! Then I opened my door, and they all locked again, except for my door. What??? Since I couldn't use the button on the door to unlock DD's door, I had to use the fob again.

This isn't normal, right?

Is there some kind of programming thing I can do to fix it? If not, it's not a huge deal because we should only have the car another day or two, but it's driving me NUTS!

Wow, that's really odd. I e had ones you can't use the lock button if the door is open to avoid locking keys in, but unlock always worked. If I use the FOB to unlock, but don't open a door, they relock after a bit. Ours lock once we start driving and I've seen ones unlock when you park, but yeah, those make sense, yours don't.

Something definitely wrong with that Jeep...I work for a rental car company and if a customer came in saying that was happening I'd switch them out right away. If the keys get locked in the vehicle and you have to have the rental company's Roadside assistance come out, its an extra charge. So just be careful!!

ETA: you can use your own AAA if you have it tho

Usually there's a way to disable automatic door locks; it's the first thing I do in a new vehicle. It's usually a convoluted process, but it should be outlined in the manual (which you may be able to find online if the rental company didn't provide it.) It doesn't involve pulling fuses or anything, just 'press the lock button three times, then turn the key, then hold the lock button for 10sec' kinda thing.

If the lock system is malfunctioning it may not work though. :shrug-shoulders:

We had something similar happen with the locks on a rental once. Shortly thereafter the car wouldn't start. It had electrical problems. We had to switch it out (and they were real butts about it too) and I was having contractions and Heather had to come save me from insanity or pre-term labor by putting my seats in because I couldn't instruct my husband how to do it AND keep the kids from running in front of cars...

ketchupqueen said:

We had something similar happen with the locks on a rental once. Shortly thereafter the car wouldn't start

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Well, if that happens, hopefully it'll be while we're at home. It's 18 degrees outside.

I'm going to have DH call and tell them about it, just to make them aware in case anything else weird does happen.

We were stuck in a Trader Joe's parking lot. On the plus side, Trader Joe's.

ketchupqueen said:

We were stuck in a Trader Joe's parking lot. On the plus side, Trader Joe's.

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Heck yeah!

And on the plus side, we got our van back yesterday. No more whacky car!