Insecure door locking

Honest John Back Room » Motoring discussion
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Fri 28 Mar 2014 16:06
Insecure door locking - hillman

I've suspected for a long time that my central locking/alarm is insecure. Many times I've gone to the car and pressed the unlock button on the key fob only to have the car lock itself. I couldn't be absolutely sure that I'd locked the car. This most often happens in supermarket car parks - embarrassingly - and sometimes at home. After a recent incident where a would be thief opened the car at dead of night and started to root through things I decided to make sure each night at home by checking the car before I go to bed. Last night I checked the car and it was locked ; this morning it wasn't. One of my neighbours must have a door locking code able to work my car doors.

I make a point of putting on the wheel locking crook bar device every time.

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Fri 28 Mar 2014 17:12
Insecure door locking - HandCart

What model of car is it, out of interest?

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Sat 29 Mar 2014 11:23
Insecure door locking - hillman

Subaru Outback 2.5 litre petrol, '56 model.

I was wondering - if the central locking device has a rolling code, will the code eventually move out of the offending band ?

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Mon 31 Mar 2014 16:02
Insecure door locking - Hamsafar

Rolling code means that if someone captures your signal, they can replay it but because it has been used before it won't work again.

I'm not sure how the car makers achieve this but would presume some form of encoding of a static pre-paired code and a rolling code and it has been encoded in such a way that someone intercepting it wouldn't know which is pre-paired and what is rolling.

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Mon 31 Mar 2014 02:21
Insecure door locking - Cyd

You don't live near a radio or phone transmitter by any chance? Or some other form of RF interferance?

Subarus are famed for being susceptible to RF interferance.

We live near a transmitter and have had a multitude of cars on our drive over the years. My mates Scooby STi is the only one afected. If he locks it it won't unlock. Even if he leaves it unlocked sometimes it won't start. If he parks 100m away up the road - no problem.

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Mon 31 Mar 2014 20:43
Insecure door locking - hillman

I've read previously of cars being stopped and refusing to restart due to interference. The nearest transmitter to us is across the valley, about 2km away. The only problem seems to be the unlocking and that is irregular.

The aspect of tranmitter masts rings a bell. When I had a fleeting problem with the car stopping on the road and restarting after a half hour wait the dealer couldn't find any fault. When I rang into the dealer for the second time the manager got cross (very shirty) and said that the problem wasn't due to electromagnetic interference from mobile phone masts. That same day the car finally stopped completely and the fault was traced to a 'broken' wire - introduced during maintenance a week earlier.

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If you cover no more than 100 miles per day and have easy access to a charging point at home or work, then an EV is ideal for you.

Is an electric car right for me?