Sylviu22

Hi people,

Today I went to a self service car wash and once i started washing the car, this got itself weirdly locking and unlocking itself.
At first i thought the buttons on the key were pressing while this one was in my pocket, but i figured out soon this was not he case. i actually took out the key from my pocket and held it in my hand when wiping my car afterwards. Thing is, it had a couple of “cycles” lock-unlock-lock not necessarily staying locked neither unlocked. It is really ****ing random.
I first noticed this behaviour while i took my car in dealership for replacing the LEDs in the mirrors, the ones that light the floor when you open the doors or unlcok the car. I guess they are called puddle lights, but i might be mistaking. This happened when working on passengers side mirror, but i considered the problemes were actually the “security feature” when you unlock the car and do not open the driver door, it self locks after 15 seconds or so.
but today was a very weird, different, whole new level of ****ed up ****. I noticed the symptoms more when i had the water jet pointed at the mirror, but it might be just a coincidence...

any clues on what the hell should i tell MB to check?

thanks!
sorry for bad english

AMGiggity

Has happened to me as well when I was washing it. It doesn't bother me enough to be worthy of a dealership trip and driving a crappy 300 for a day.

RichardCranium3

LOL - there’s nothing wrong with your car. When you have the key in your pocket, outside of the vehicle, and you’re spraying at the car wash, it’s making the same contact with the door handle as if your had is touching it to lock/unlock. Leave the key in the cup holder, problem solved.

///zhp04

I have found that the water spray can activate the car's lock activating proximity sensors if you have the key in your pocket.

Leave the key in the car and problem should be resolved.

superswiss

Yes, that's absolutely normal as mentioned above and happens on any car with keyless lock/unlock. If you keep the key fob on your person while washing the car then the conductivity of the water through the nozzle is enough to trigger the capacitive sensors in the door handle into thinking that your hand is near it. Keep the key inside of the car or far enough away from it while washing the car.

DMWelk

As stated above that's part of the keyless go feature, with the key in your pocket then hitting the sensors in the door handles will cycle the lock and unlock feature. Put the key inside the car, problem solved.

Sylviu22

okay, partly makes sense, but my panic is still kind of legit, because this is not the first time i washed the car at the very same carwash... and it did not behave like that. It only started after my leds were replaced....

batman719

If you're really concerned about it, take the key out of range next time you wash the car and see if it happens again. I'm confident what you are experiencing has nothing to do with your LEDs and is, instead, what the others on this thread have described.

Sylviu22

thanks for the encouragement. I am
taking the car to the dealership tomorrow for tranny and ecu updates, touchpad replacement and will ask them to run a diag for the door as well.

dagan

idk if newer keyfob has an option to "lock" the key, if I tap lock button twice really quick, it disables my key so it won't work for proximity keyless entry and such until I press on unlock on the keyfob again.

I do this everytime I wash my car

superswiss

Yes, that's another option. Clicking the lock button twice turns off the keyfob and yes, the newer keyfobs still have that feature. The newer keyfobs also have a motion sensor in them that turns them off if the key hasn't been moved for the last 2 minutes. This is so that thieves can't steel the car from your driveway by picking up the keyfob signal from inside your house and relay it to another device near your car to unlock and start it w/o being in possession of the key.