how to disable my auto lock?

fouillard13

Veteran Member
Joined
Oct 8, 2012
Location
Pincher Creek, AB
TDI
03 Jetta TDI Standard
oooooookkkkkk, im about to blow a gasket here. I swear to god if I go 3/4 around my car with a handfull of stuff again, to find every door locked except for the driver door, ill boot the god damn window in!!!!!!!

ive had enough of this. I dont know why I cant remember.. but its bit me in the ass 10+ times this last month. in the rain and everything.. gotta run to driver door, unlock them all, then try again just to get into the back seat. especially fun when im on the passenger side and in a rush or already frustrated.. im really losing my patience with this here.

how do I disable this? if I have to take my doors apart and grind the lock pins out with an angle grinder, I will!!!!!!!

I do NOT want my doors to lock automatically, ever again until I hit the button, ever ever again. I know this is possible. how do I do this. please save me from having a meltdown over these damn locks!!!!
 

Vince Waldon

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Apr 25, 2009
Location
Edmonton AB Canada
TDI
2001 ALH Jetta, 2003 ALH Wagon, 2005 BEW Wagon
Does your dome light come on when you open the drivers door?

Probably not. :) :) If so, your car is auto-locking because you have a defective switch in the drivers door. Because of this the car can't tell if the drivers door has been opened yet, so re-locks the car after 30 seconds, so it won't get stolen.

Autolocking CAN NOT be disabled... it's hard-coded into the control firmware.

The fix is to repair or replace the defective door switch. "Stupid door sensor $3 fix" is the master thread with all the answers. I've replaced door switches on all three of the Jettas I've owned... very common problem.
 
Last edited:

fouillard13

Veteran Member
Joined
Oct 8, 2012
Location
Pincher Creek, AB
TDI
03 Jetta TDI Standard
yes ive been through the door switch scenario before, and possibly maybe even made a thread like this before too. this is the straw that broke the camels back though. I need to get it figured out once and for all.


it was my passenger door that failed.. talk about a headache. alarms in the middle of the night, dead battery at airport parking after a 14 day shift at work, flashing dome lights while driving, door ajar light constantly on and off every .5 seconds. everything. did I mention that I sometimes hate this car?? I was able to "fix" it by simply unplugging the puddle light bulb from the offending door... believe I mentioned that in the $3 thread.

if the switch is cheap, I do have an awesome mechanic who charges $50 an hour cash. I bet it would be $100 labor to swap those switches out? maybe $150 at most and parts?? ill pay it. what else do I need to do? I NEED to disable this auto locking, or tape it shut, or unscrew it, grind it, bend it, It doesnt matter anymore. even if I have to empty my car and leave it unlocked from now on... theres nothing in it anyways and im in a tiny town.
 

jokila

Vendor
Joined
Dec 3, 2004
Location
Houston, Texas
TDI
2003 Jetta GLS, Manual
oooooookkkkkk, im about to blow a gasket here. I swear to god if I go 3/4 around my car with a handfull of stuff again, to find every door locked except for the driver door, ill boot the god damn window in!!!!!!!
ive had enough of this. I dont know why I cant remember.. but its bit me in the ass 10+ times this last month. in the rain and everything.. gotta run to driver door, unlock them all, then try again just to get into the back seat. especially fun when im on the passenger side and in a rush or already frustrated.. im really losing my patience with this here.
how do I disable this? if I have to take my doors apart and grind the lock pins out with an angle grinder, I will!!!!!!!
I do NOT want my doors to lock automatically, ever again until I hit the button, ever ever again. I know this is possible. how do I do this. please save me from having a meltdown over these damn locks!!!!
Look at it from another way. How about switching the auto-unlock on with VCDS.

I turned that on a year ago and it is great when I remove the key from the ignition and all the doors are unlocked. No more of what you go through.
 

Vince Waldon

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Apr 25, 2009
Location
Edmonton AB Canada
TDI
2001 ALH Jetta, 2003 ALH Wagon, 2005 BEW Wagon
Pretty sure the car will re-lock it self in 30 seconds even with auto unlock on, but could be wrong for your particular year. Didn't help either of my 2001s. :)

Again, OP, there is NOTHING you can grind or tape or hammer here...auto locking is in the car's hard-coding. Fix your door switches, which you evidently knew about already, and all will be fine.
 

Rembrant

Veteran Member
Joined
Oct 31, 2014
Location
Canada's Ocean Playground
TDI
2013 Golf TDI DSG
Pretty sure the car will re-lock it self in 30 seconds even with auto unlock on, but could be wrong for your particular year. Didn't help either of my 2001s. :)
Hey Vince, I have my '03 Golf set-up with auto-unlock the same as Jokila's above, and it does the same thing. Pull the key out of the ignition, and all four doors unlock, and stay unlocked unless I re-lock them. The dome light stays on for about 30 seconds after I close the door, but that's it. All door switches are good.

I don't remember having an issue with the auto-locking, but what bugged me was having to unlock the back doors separately. That was the main reason for enabling this feature, for me at least.
 

fruitcakesa

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Feb 18, 2007
Location
Vermont
TDI
04 jetta 5 spd wagon
I also have had no problems after setting up auto-unlock., but I still take the key with me when I leave the car:eek:
 

jokila

Vendor
Joined
Dec 3, 2004
Location
Houston, Texas
TDI
2003 Jetta GLS, Manual
Pretty sure the car will re-lock it self in 30 seconds even with auto unlock on, but could be wrong for your particular year. Didn't help either of my 2001s. :)

Again, OP, there is NOTHING you can grind or tape or hammer here...auto locking is in the car's hard-coding. Fix your door switches, which you evidently knew about already, and all will be fine.
I currently have a bad driver's door lock module that self arms after unlocking with the FOB if I don't do something more than open the door the driver's door. Obviously, it thinks the door is still closed and will rearm when that happens.

When the auto unlock takes place after I arrive to my destination and pull the key out of the ignition, it will NOT auto lock. So I have no issues with possibly locking my keys in the car. I think the reason for that is because the car did not go into lock and arm mode. It has no reason to rearm just like if you had opened another door other than the bad one, or turned on the ignition, all which get it out of the lock and arm mode.
 

Vince Waldon

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Apr 25, 2009
Location
Edmonton AB Canada
TDI
2001 ALH Jetta, 2003 ALH Wagon, 2005 BEW Wagon
Well that's good news for the OP in terms of auto-unlock being a potential way around part of auto lock...not sure why my car(s) didn't quite behave that way but maybe something else was going on to.
 

UhOh

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Dec 24, 2014
Location
PNW
TDI
2000 & 2003 Golf GLS (2005 Mercedes E320 CDI)
My blue Golf is set up to auto unlock and I've found that I prefer this. Going to do this to my other cars (as soon as I find the magic incantations).
 

rotarykid

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Apr 27, 2003
Location
Piedmont of N.C. & the plains of Colorado
TDI
1997 Passat TDI White,99.5 Blue Jetta TDI
I have a 99.5 Jetta with that bad habit of relocking the car....turns out it is as described above, I had a bad door switch in the driver's door....

Now there are two ways around this problem,

first, is replace the defective switch....

The other is when you unlock the car open one of the doors which has a working door switch. That will disable the relock.....

What I was doing was every time I unlocked the car I would open & close the back door on the driver's side. The other was if I was coming from the passenger side to the driver's side I would open & close one of the doors on that side...
 

Alchemist

Veteran Member
Joined
Nov 3, 2007
Location
Lethbridge, Alberta
TDI
'04 ALH Golf
Is the issue here re-locking or auto locking when the car reaches 15 Km/hr?

Auto lock is easily turned off with VCDS, and selective unlock can also be disabled, so all doors unlock with one button press.
 

JB05

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Oct 20, 2005
Location
Il.USA
TDI
Golf,2005,anthracite blue
I thought the car had to be in motion, at least 10mph, for the auto lock to function. I too had a faulty; actually I still do, micro switch that I have since by passed per a mod I found here. I installed a "momentary switch" like the conventional type used on earlier cars. It is spliced to the panel light ground wire on my driver's side door.
 

rotarykid

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Apr 27, 2003
Location
Piedmont of N.C. & the plains of Colorado
TDI
1997 Passat TDI White,99.5 Blue Jetta TDI
I thought the car had to be in motion, at least 10mph, for the auto lock to function. I too had a faulty; actually I still do, micro switch that I have since by passed per a mod I found here. I installed a "momentary switch" like the conventional type used on earlier cars. It is spliced to the panel light ground wire on my driver's side door.
did I misunderstand the question? I thought we were discussing the re-lock function if it doesn't detect that a door has been opened in ~30 secs?

I have a friend who got locked out of his car one time in a rest area on the other side of the US because the driver's door switch was not working.

He used the locking switch on the door to unlock the car, then stepped out for a second, he closed the door because it was raining ......but the convenience module did not see the door had been opened so locked him out of the car. He had to get a locksmith to come out and let him in the car....

In my car, I have unlocked the car but because of a bad door switch, it did not know I have opened a door so it relocked it on me. Luckily for me, I had to keys in my pocket the times this happened to me...I just learned to do what I described above to avoid being locked out...
 

Vince Waldon

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Apr 25, 2009
Location
Edmonton AB Canada
TDI
2001 ALH Jetta, 2003 ALH Wagon, 2005 BEW Wagon
Auto-lock is the issue here I believe, and there are two types:

1) lock the doors when the car reaches 15 mph. Configurable via VCDS.

2) lock the doors after 30 seconds if the car is unlocked and doesn't see someone open a door to leave. NOT configurable via VCDS.
 

fouillard13

Veteran Member
Joined
Oct 8, 2012
Location
Pincher Creek, AB
TDI
03 Jetta TDI Standard
auto locking here is the issue.

when I roll up to my destination, I dont want my doors to be locked. none of them.

hell, when I leave the destination, and hit the highway, I STILL dont want them to be locked.

if I want them locked when im done for the day, or leaving for a long time... ill lock them ALL myself, with the button. simple. I wish VW would realize that.

matter of fact.. the rear driver lock pin rattles when its down/locked... so ill unlock it while driving down the highway once in a while anyways.

so if I could just disable that auto lock, itll make my life a lottttt easier.

the 30 second delay thing I can, and have learned to live with. unlock, and pop a door open real quick if needed. but the auto lock I just cant seem to remember after 2 years and 90,000 km. I dont know if im frustrated with the car or with myself at this point!! nothing worse than needing something out of the rear passenger floor or seat, where I keep a lot of my tools, and pulling on a locked handle that shouldnt be locked, and I didnt lock it.. for the 10th+ time this month.
 
Last edited:

Vince Waldon

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Apr 25, 2009
Location
Edmonton AB Canada
TDI
2001 ALH Jetta, 2003 ALH Wagon, 2005 BEW Wagon
OK, good news then... you're behind door #1.

Get your VCDS out and you can disable the "autolock as the car drives over 15 mph".

It is *not* on by default, so someone before you turned it on.
 

UhOh

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Dec 24, 2014
Location
PNW
TDI
2000 & 2003 Golf GLS (2005 Mercedes E320 CDI)
OK, good news then... you're behind door #1.

Get your VCDS out and you can disable the "autolock as the car drives over 15 mph".

It is *not* on by default, so someone before you turned it on.
Maybe it's different for CA than the US?

For my two US green Golfs (mine, for sure, was never mucked with) they're set to auto-lock. Blue Golf I know has the auto-unlock set ON: or maybe the auto-lock isn't on? (this was done by PO)
 

Rembrant

Veteran Member
Joined
Oct 31, 2014
Location
Canada's Ocean Playground
TDI
2013 Golf TDI DSG
Auto-lock is the issue here I believe, and there are two types:

1) lock the doors when the car reaches 15 mph. Configurable via VCDS.

2) lock the doors after 30 seconds if the car is unlocked and doesn't see someone open a door to leave. NOT configurable via VCDS.
I just checked my 03 Golf, and #2 does work as intended.

I might have been confused earlier...but what I changed on my was that all four doors unlock when I remove the key from the ignition. I thought I had also set it so that all four doors unlock with one touch on the keyfob...but maybe these two things were one in the same?

All I know is, it drove me crazy to have a second motion to unlock the back doors. I've never had a door locking issue since.

So I guess all the OP needs to do is replace the defective driver's door switch, no?
 

UhOh

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Dec 24, 2014
Location
PNW
TDI
2000 & 2003 Golf GLS (2005 Mercedes E320 CDI)
This MAY help (for power window'd cars only):

http://www.ross-tech.com/vag-com/cars/vwmkIV.html

[Select]
[46 - Cent. Conv.]

[Adaptation - 10]
Channel (03..08)
Adaptation Value (1 = on, 0 = off)
[Save]

Channel 03 Auto Lock
Channel 04 Auto Unlock
Channel 05 Unlock, horn sounds
Channel 06 Lock, horn sounds
Channel 07 Unlock, turn signals flash
Channel 08 Lock, turn signals flash


Seems it's the first two items -Channel 03 & 04- that are of interested. I believe, based on what my green Golfs do, Channel 03 is set to "1" and Channel 04 is set to "0" I haven't checked with VCDS, but that's how it seems it will show up as. I'd hesitated about changing Channel 04 for quite some time; not until I got to experience what it was like to not have to be hitting the unlock button all the time to fetch stuff from the rear seats (where I always toss stuff) -as is the case with my recently acquired blue Golf- I just accepted this behavior. Now, however, I'm going to change this on my green Golfs.
 

jettawreck

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Aug 2, 2004
Location
Northern Minnesota-55744
TDI
2001 Jetta and 2003 Jetta
All my VWs I have programmed to NOT auto-lock and to auto-unlock all doors when key is removed. All doors to lock when lock button on fob is pushed once (with a horn toot and lights blink) and all doors unlock with a single fob unlock button push.
A bad door switch can be a trouble maker and get you locked out of your car, so either fix the switch (or as mentioned a work around method) or remember to open a working door to prevent auto-relock from kicking in.
 

fouillard13

Veteran Member
Joined
Oct 8, 2012
Location
Pincher Creek, AB
TDI
03 Jetta TDI Standard
Problem fixed!!! thanks to a very generous member; Alchemist.

he seen my struggle and happened to be in the area. Sent me a PM, we met up, he changed a few things in my car with his VCDS and sent me on my way!! simply turned auto locking to off.. and done.

im already loving it... the car does NOT lock unless I tell it to. perfect!! cant believe I dealt with this for 2 years now. ive already gotten into the passenger doors, twice, that night.. without them being locked.

I am very happy this is finally fixed!! TDIclub came through once again, awesome group of guys we got here, especially Alchemist for stepping up to the plate and fixing it once and for all for me!!!!!! I really appreciate that and owa ya one Paul!

thanks again guys.
 

jokila

Vendor
Joined
Dec 3, 2004
Location
Houston, Texas
TDI
2003 Jetta GLS, Manual
OK, good news then... you're behind door #1.

Get your VCDS out and you can disable the "autolock as the car drives over 15 mph".

It is *not* on by default, so someone before you turned it on.
I have never seen a Mk4 not come this way.

The dealership has a prep checklist the service tech goes through for new cars that they maybe configuring some of this.
 

fouillard13

Veteran Member
Joined
Oct 8, 2012
Location
Pincher Creek, AB
TDI
03 Jetta TDI Standard
just an update. I LOVEEEEEE the car again. wow, its amazing how something so simple has made my life sooo much easier. being able to walk to the car, at any time, any door, and have them all always unlocked is a dream come true! no more setting my hands full of stuff down, in the rain, and having to reach into my pockets for the keys, or rage walk all the way around to the driver door to unlock, then all the way back to the rear passenger door to get my tool kit. I love it now.

thanks again Alchemist. I thank you every time I open an unlocked door, and always will haha!!
 

rotarykid

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Apr 27, 2003
Location
Piedmont of N.C. & the plains of Colorado
TDI
1997 Passat TDI White,99.5 Blue Jetta TDI
I finally sent my Jetta to auto unlock when I pull the key out. I had had to dig the cable out to deal with my ABS light coming on due to the failure of my fuse block on top of the battery from age and battery acid so I just went ahead and fix this while I was in there. I really like this feature of being able to have the car automatically unlock itself whenever I pull the key out I turned off the horn when locking it also so the horn does not blow it all anymore when locking the car. Wish I had done this years ago, I hope this can be done to my 04 Passat TDI...
 

jokila

Vendor
Joined
Dec 3, 2004
Location
Houston, Texas
TDI
2003 Jetta GLS, Manual
I finally sent my Jetta to auto unlock when I pull the key out. I had had to dig the cable out to deal with my ABS light coming on due to the failure of my fuse block on top of the battery from age and battery acid so I just went ahead and fix this while I was in there. I really like this feature of being able to have the car automatically unlock itself whenever I pull the key out I turned off the horn when locking it also so the horn does not blow it all anymore when locking the car. Wish I had done this years ago, I hope this can be done to my 04 Passat TDI...

That's what I was suggesting way up in this thread.

I wished the OP or Alchemist had chimed in here on how it was done. Useful for other people who might want it.
 

jettawreck

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Aug 2, 2004
Location
Northern Minnesota-55744
TDI
2001 Jetta and 2003 Jetta
That's what I was suggesting way up in this thread.
I wished the OP or Alchemist had chimed in here on how it was done. Useful for other people who might want it.
It's a rather simple procedure and well stepped out in the vcds manual. You have several options on how and which items to code for locking/unlocking and unlock at key out, etc...
I'm a complete clutz at computer stuff (couldn't figure out how to post pics here) and have done dozens of lock reprograms.
 
Top