Unlocking doors

[RUM4MO]

Locking - One press will lock everything no matter how your system is encoded

Unlocking - In your case, the coding seems such that, upon unlocking, one press unlocks the driver's door only and two presses unlocks all doors and tailgate

I agree totally!

[alexperkins]

Its VWs and Audis default stance now to do drivers door unlocking on one press, and all remaining doors on the second press

The reason behind it is part of their 'anti-hijack' approach, whereby if only the drivers door is unlocked, somebody cant try and get in another door before you have got in via the drivers door.

Ive disabled this on all the VWs and Audis i have had as i dont like it, and frankly dont see the point in it. Some people like it, but its personal preference.

On the topic of safelock, my 6R Match had safelock as a standard feature. It said check safelock when you locked the car on the DIS in the instrument cluster.

[veteran]

Alex and others,

Yes, most interesting. With my Match Edition 1.2 TSI it could very well be like that. Car's in my garage at present and am busy with a multitude of other preoccupations. Weather outside is also dreadful at present and especially windy. So I won't have an opportunity to affirm your opinions until a day or two from now (Wed 27th).

Thus far, I've found nothing by way of paperwork that confirms my Match Edition (incidentally, there's Match and there's Match Edition) as having Safelock, but the VW Driver's Manual has several pages of detail on central locking, including setting it via a pair of buttons provided on the inner side of the driver's door, in addition to the usual means via the key fob. (More to do with specifically locking personnel in, rather than anything else). Some of it isn't written all that well and is contradictory. So, it's hard to be certain about the rules. But it states quite plainly in at least two places that if Safelock isn't incorporated you have to press the fob twice in order to lock all doors and the boot. So, when finally I re-test the locking/unlocking, I'll look for that Safelock notification in the instrument cluster display. I've a sneeking suspicion I've seen it in the past but may not have realised its significance. That Driver's Manual is an evolving piece of literature, BTW, and I gather that there have been several revisions of it that have included descriptions of new features in some later Polo models.

Watch this space over the next few days, to discover the result of my test-out. As can so often happen, you think you understand how something works and time moves on, but then suddenly you hear something from someone or something that then contradicts it. This is one such situation.

[d-ash]

Sit inside the car and press the lock button twice. If you can open a door using the internal handle then you have verified that 2 presses of the fob deactivates internal security and deadlocks (i.e. you have locked the vehicle without SAFELOCK). If you can't open the doors with the internal handles then you don't have SAFELOCK (and have probably, by now, set off the alarm !!). Press the unlock button on the remote to deactivate the alarm/unlock the car.

Where the manual says "Press the <lock icon> button twice to lock the vehicle without SAFELOCK", this means you press the button twice to deactivate internal security and deadlocks (i.e. to lock it without SAFELOCK having been activated); it does NOT mean press the button twice to lock a vehicle not equipped with SAFELOCK

SAFELOCK being the locking of the vehicle with deadlocks having been activated (and internal handles disabled)

[veteran]

d-ash,

I see what you mean now. As I said earlier, some of the Manual's wording on this is ambiguous and is seemingly contradictory. It looks like I fell victim to that. Thanks for putting me straight.

I'll run through your and some other simple tests just as soon as I can and will let you know the outcome.

[veteran]

Right, I've finally performed the small experiment. See what you make of this.

So okay, d-ash, I did as you instructed and sat in the car and pressed the LOCK button on the key-fob TWICE. No alarms went off. I tried the internal door handle (driver's door) and could freely open the door. Again, no alarm going off. Thus, by your reckoning, d-ash, these TWO LOCK presses deactivate the internal security and deadlocking on my particular Polo. But you said "....... security and deadlocks, ie. you've locked the vehicle without Safelock". Unless you meant "locked from the outside", that can't be the case, can it, as I was able to open the doors from my seated position? I guess you meant to say "If you press the Lock button twice while you're sitting inside, then this locks the vehicle to an outsider. But meanwhile you, on the inside, can still open the doors. You've locked the vehicle 'without Safelock' ". Right?

As for basic locking and unlocking of the vehicle from the outside, I tested this and found that (apparently) ONE press of the LOCK on the fob LOCKED EVERY DOOR AND THE BOOTLID. So okay, that seems fine. And actually, you can see the locked status by the little red LED that then flashes continuously on the driver's door.

The UNLOCKING, however, did NOT agree with what you guys keep telling me. One press of UNLOCK did NOT unlock the driver's door only. Instead, it UNLOCKED ALL THE DOORS AND THE BOOTLID.

So certainly at present my Polo seems set up to use just ONE LOCK press from outside the vehicle to LOCK EVERYTHING, and also just ONE UNLOCK press to UNLOCK EVERYTHING.

I did also look in the Vehicle settings in the Infotainment display. (That, of course, requires that you have the ignition turned on). The only relevant user-configurable setting I found there was a choice in how to UNLOCK the vehicle. It was either: UNLOCK ONE DOOR, or UNLOCK ALL DOORS, or UNLOCK SIDE DOOR. I found that UNLOCK ALL DOORS had been selected. Either I'd done that when I first got the car, or possibly the dealer had set it to that. Irrespective, UNLOCK ALL DOORS seems to be the best choice and so I've left it like that. That particular part of the menu offers to reset to the factory default if you wish, but not knowing what the factory default actually is, I simply left it alone.

So, what d'ya think, guys and gals? Is my locking/unlocking system in a healthy and logical state? It rather looks as though I've hitherto been unnecessarily hitting the key-fob twice to lock and unlock the vehicle. Am I still not understanding the system properly?

[d-ash]

But you said "....... security and deadlocks, ie. you've locked the vehicle without Safelock". Unless you meant "locked from the outside", that can't be the case, can it, as I was able to open the doors from my seated position? I guess you meant to say "If you press the Lock button twice while you're sitting inside, then this locks the vehicle to an outsider. But meanwhile you, on the inside, can still open the doors. You've locked the vehicle 'without Safelock' ". Right?

As I see it, the reason for locking the car without Safelock activated is to enable you to lock the car from the outside while leaving someone else inside. That person is then able to exit the vehicle if required using the internal door handles.

As far as pressing twice to unlock everything, it was you who previously stated that your tailgate remained locked (on one occasion) unless you pressed the fob button twice. This lead me to believe that your car was programmed to press the button twice to unlock everything.

You are, at least, now assured that one press of the relevant button locks/unlocks all doors and tailgate

[RUM4MO]

I think that you have discovered that while Alex said that "driver's door only on first press is the Audi VW default" - that as time goes on maybe these defaults change/alternate etc, certainly my wife's current August 2015 6C Pol 1.2TSI 110PS SEL 6MT came from the dealer with one press opens all doors and it was being sold to a woman which I thought might change any security option issues for the PDI. Now, unfortunately that individual woman, my wife, owned a 2002 Polo 1.4 16V 75PS SE 5MT from new, thought bought new in NL, and that car had "one press only unlocks driver's door" from new and I just left it that way as maybe it suited her use at that time better - so, her current car probably gets given "two presses" even if it does not need it, I can't check up on that as she will not drive when I'm in the car - unless she is collecting me from a beer festival!

[veteran]

As far as pressing twice to unlock everything, it was you who previously stated that your tailgate remained locked unless you pressed the fob button twice.

Yes, I did indeed say that, and I was really convinced that that was the case. But it stems from a one-off occurrence quite some time ago, so who knows what the cause of that was, or why the boot then unlocked with a second press? Go figure. (There's a specific 'lock the boot' position on the fob, so maybe something there, with that, got out of step?). Irrespective, it does seem I've unnecessarily been pressing the unlock twice ever since that time.

Addendum: Going back to poloag and his/her original question that then sparked off this more-detailed analysis, he/she didn't state which model of Polo was being considered. His/her's might, for instance, be a much earlier Polo with cruder locking/unlocking. But if it's one of the quite recent 6C/6R's he/she might well find the same user-configurable setting in the Infotainment display, under Vehicle. Setting it to unlock ALL DOORS should therefore fix his/her current problem. Maybe, he/she's already done it?

[RUM4MO]

veteran, just seeing as you have mentioned it, you said that there is a specific "lock the boot" button on the key fob - that was wrongly worded, it is a specific "release the boot/hatch" button.

[veteran]

Rum4mo,

I didn't mean "lock the boot" in that specific sense, but instead it was just a general way of putting it. In my ignorance, though, the phrase I used obviously could be taken literally. Anyway, thanks for pointing out that that particular function is actually "release the boot". That's something else I've learnt in all of this vehicle locking/unlocking business. You really have to understand it fully and keep on top of it all, don't you?

[SRGTD]

If your car is locked and you use the boot release button to open the tailgate and load / unload something in the boot, make sure you’ve got your key in your pocket (and you’ve not laid it in the boot) before you shut the tailgate, otherwise your keys will be locked inside the boot!

I don’t use the boot release button for this reason, in case I have a momentary lapse of concentration. If I want to use the boot and my car is locked, I always press the unlock button twice to access it.