Central locking woes, had to break a window

[RobNL]

Hi, 

My first post here. I'm a UK expat in the Netherlands and I drive a left had drive Octavia Estate MK1 from 2001 with 305,000km on the clock. I still love driving it but the central locking does annoy me at times. I hoping for some pointers.

I've just come back from my summer holiday in Spain and the car has had a 'feature' for years where the central locking 'locks' the car about 20 seconds after opening. Unfortunatly during the holiday this happened with the keys in the car. I had to break the right hand passenger windows (LH drive) to get into the car. I did try the left hand rear passenger window but that would not open the centrally locked doors.

 

 

My questions are:

1. If the car in centrally locked, should I normally be able to open the car doors by using one of the rear car doors or will only the front doors unlock the mechanism

2. Is there anything I can do to stop the car centrally locking after 20 seconds?

 

 

 

[MikeTheThinker]

19 minutes ago, RobNL said:

1. If the car in centrally locked, should I normally be able to open the car doors by using one of the rear car doors or will only the front doors unlock the mechanism

 

From my own prior experience (yes, I did the same but fortunately a crafty AA man was able to insert a wire around the doorframe and fish out the keys) and also from what I understand the locking control is based around the microswitches in the keyed door lock - usually only the driver's door - so if that door isn't unlocked the others won't be either.

 

22 minutes ago, RobNL said:

2. Is there anything I can do to stop the car centrally locking after 20 seconds?

 

I believe your can change this in the control options but someone with more VCDS experience would have to confirm that - and also whether it can be changed via any other means.

 

[KenONeill]

On 11/08/2019 at 18:08, RobNL said:

Is there anything I can do to stop the car centrally locking after 20 seconds?

Open a door. Well, it stops mine doing a timed re-lock.

[Tech1e]

Yeah, sounds like passive locking. And more than likely the micro switch is playing up in the door so the control unit doesn’t realise you have opened the  door so it passive locks. 

[olddog]

1 hour ago, Tech1e said:

Yeah, sounds like passive locking. And more than likely the micro switch is playing up in the door so the control unit doesn’t realise you have opened the  door so it passive locks. 

Yup, sounds like it.

 

OP, have a look at the first stickey at the top of this forum

[lulzyboy]

I too am an expat with a RHD Octavia. I've almost had the same situation but luckily had a spare key with me. Your drivers side (Left in your case) door lock microswitch is faulty.

You can test this by setting the lights to door mode, open the drivers door and see if the light comes on. 

 

To avoid it happening again, just open another door.