This is a first: I was at the gas station and stepped out of my car to fill up. I left my phone, wallet and keys inside the car with the car turned off. (I use my Apple Watch to pay for gas). The car then locked itself with everything inside. I had no way to open the car! I was able to call my buddy on my Apple Watch to have him sign in to MercedesMe on his phone, and after multiple attempts, he was able to unlock my car. To say I was p(ssed off is a huge understatement. I called Mercedes Customer Service and explained the situation. Nice lady by the way, and I apologized up front for being an ***, but I was really mad. I was holding up the gas pump and worse, I was locked out of my damn car! She proceeded to tell me that that was by design and the car will lock itself in this scenario to protect itself. I asked if I had called Customer Service, would she have been able to unlock the car? She said no, they would have sent someone to jimmy the door and get me in. I told her this was a horrible design flaw not only because it can lock the owner out of their car, but it is a horrible security feature; not for the car, but for its owner. I said, what if my wife had been at a remote gas station in the middle of nowhere and this happened to her? And she didn't have an Apple Watch to call to someone? There are no payphones anymore, and she would have had to find someone nearby with a phone so she could call me or someone to help. The Customer Servicer person' response was "You should always take your key with you when you exit the vehicle". No sh)t.

Obviously, I'm still worked up over this and usually know better than to write something when I'm mad, but this really got me going.

I thought it was impossible to lock your keys in the car, so has anyone else ever had this happen?

 

I’m having trouble with this statement. Can you imagine the collateral damage?

 

What is the situation that the customer service rep referenced? The only situation I'm aware of in which the car locks itself is if it was locked and then you unlock it, but don't open one of the front doors within 30 seconds. It then relocks itself as it assumes it was accidently unlocked. Similar to a butt-dial if you have your phone in your pocket. It doesn't seem like this was the situation, though, since your key etc. was inside of the car.

The only other thing to keep in mind, is that this and the last generation of key fobs have motion sensors in them and they automatically deactivate after two minutes if they don't sense any motion. This is to prevent relay attacks. This also means that the car no longer detects your key fob if you let it sit inside of the car and you could accidently lock it in for example if you press the close and lock button on the trunk. I've almost locked in my key and phone this way a few times after a bike ride, but luckily the fob was still awake and so the trunk popped back open after a couple of seconds to retrieve it.

Definitely curious about the sequence of events that lead to this.

 

Thanks @superswiss - This is likely the scenario that occurred. I had left the gym so only had on gym shorts with no pockets and placed my keyfob in the cup holder. So, it had been stationary for a while. I got out of the car and closed the door behind me. The doors locked and set this process in motion.

With that said, there have been MANY times I've left my phone, key and wallet in the car and left it unlocked for hours at a time. I'm really uncertain what caused the car to lock itself this time.

If this is indeed a "feature", there have been many times when I'd like to lock the key in my car, such as a bike ride, run or otherwise don't want to take the key with me. I'll have my phone with me and can unlock the car with MercedesMe upon my return. But touching the handle to lock the doors has never worked for me, but it appears I must wait two minutes for the key to go idle, then the car will lock itself? Or will I need to touch the handle to then lock the doors?

 

Still doesn't add up. The car doesn't lock itself if it no longer detects the key fob, and you can't look it from the outside by touching the door handle. You must have the key fob on your person to lock the doors from the outside. Otherwise it won't look. So it's still puzzling how the door locked on you in this scenario. I leave my cars unlocked in my garage most of the time and the fob sits on a small table in the house. The cars never lock automatically. As said the only way I ever managed to lock the car from the outside w/o the key fob being on my person is if I placed the fob in the trunk and then pressed the close and lock button on the trunk, but as said the trunk pops open automatically after a second or so when it detects the key fob inside of the trunk.

I'm not sure if this actually works, but the only other situation I could think of is if you press the lock button on the inside of the door and then slam the door shut. But I thought it won't let you do that while the door is open. Just curious, did it actually lock, or did it just retract the door handles? The latter would make a lot more sense. If the fob went to sleep, then the door handles retract, but the car is not locked. You can swipe across the handle to extend them again as shown in the video below.

 

The car was definitely locked with the door handles retracted. When my buddy logged in to MercedesMe on his phone, he attempted to unlock the doors, but couldn't. He kept getting "processing" on his phone. He then tried to start the car, and I got the notification on my watch that he did, but the car never started. The door handles popped out at one point, and although I could pull on the handles, the doors wouldn't open. The car was honestly acting as if I was inside the car and someone was attempted to get inside the car.

I tried swiping the door handles, press the unlock divot on the handle, tried to open the trunk, nadda. My buddy then suggested that I stop trying to get in the car and let it sit for a bit. After a couple of minutes, he was then able to unlock the car and I could get in. He was seconds away from driving to my location with my second key (which he has for emergencies), but thankfully he didn't need to do that.

As an aside - you know how this forum lists related topics below the one you're reading. It did the same for me on this topic, and it appears others have chimed in on a similar scenario. The name of his post was "Self Locking" Self Locking - MBWorld.org Forums

 

More and more sounds like a malfunction, rather than a feature and customer support doesn't seem to have a clue about what's going on. The fact that remote start didn't seem to work, either, also indicates that something was malfunctioning. There have been several reports with these newfangled retractable door handles having issues. In that related thread, several posters also pointed out that the door handles could simply have retracted, but the doors weren't actually locked. I have noticed that retracting and extending the door handles even makes a similar sound as locking/unlocking. So far haven't run into issues with them myself. Just had an EQS 580 loaner for about a week and they worked properly. I did have an S 500 loaner at one point last year and I do remember the door handles kept extending and retracting for seemingly no reason. It never locked my out, but FWIW I always had the fob in my pocket.

 

I suppose what really got me mad was if I had been out in the middle of nowhere and this happened, and I didn't have my Apple Watch with me, my only recourse would have been to walk somewhere to find a phone, or to flag down someone on the road and ask to use their phone. Short of that, if a phone was miles away, or if I was injured, etc., the only recourse would have been to break a window to gain access to the car.

Except for when I had my blowout at night on 285 here in Atlanta, my car has never stranded me. But this could have gone wrong quickly in the above-mentioned scenario. I work in technology, so I know technology isn't foolproof, so my takeaway from this event is to do as the customer service agent suggested and always take my key with me.

 

Not for nothing, but I never leave my keys in my car unless I have the top down, or at least 1 window open. Once burned, twice shy.

 

Maybe the key fob battery is running low?

 

Did the door handles just retract and you assumed the car was locked? Or did the car actually lock?

 

The car had been in for its B1 service a couple weeks earlier - so battery in the fob was replaced then.

 

The car was actually locked. What's strange about the whole thing is that the lights on the instrument panel were light up as if I was in the car. That's the assumption my buddy and I made was that somehow the car thought I was inside. We think that's the reason the doors locked and wouldn't let him start the car. I've tried on several occasions over the weekend to replicate the issue, but can't.

 

This happened to me once, and I have debugged it to the key and the iPhone being next to each other in the cupholder. It basically pretty much renders the key useless, and the car is unable to detect the fact that it is inside. The car did not lock itself though, I think I somehow ended up doing that as I hit the lock button on the trunk. Same could have happened with the handle too, but my situation was the trunk button.

You can run an experiment. Approach a locked car, with the key and your iphone next to each other in hand, and see if the keyless entry works. If it does, then that is not it, but for me, it never does. MY18 S560 FWIW...

 

Thanks for posting that video. I noticed when the handles retract back in the door and I walk to it the handles don't pop out. I then attempt to swipe the handle like the video suggests but half of the time it doesn't work.
On another occasion I drove by buddies to get their car from the car hauler after a Rally and left my car running with keyfob in my pocket. It was running at least 10 minutes while we were talking to the driver. Said our good byes and walked towards the car and noticed the handles retracted back in. Swiped the handle and nothing. Even tried pressing the unlock button on the fob and nothing. Then tried swiping the rears and the front handles and the unlock and after what seemed like 15 seconds, the handles popped out. Any idea?

 

But you shouldn't be able to lock the car from the trunk button if you don't have your key with you?

I understand the iPhone next to the key may make the key "disappear" but the car still should never lock doors itself except the scenario superswiss explained earlier or while you are driving and doors are set to be locked at certain speed.

There must be a SW/HW bug involved, hopefully someone can replicate the complete sequence to trigger the fault (it can then be fixed and/or avoided).

 

I've never believed in that silly swipe gesture. Just press anywhere on the handle that is NOT the little square cutout/indentation. That indentation spot is only for locking. I've always just pressed the handle and it has worked perfectly. Don't swipe.

 

This is true. The lock button from the trunk only works if the key is present.

 

On both my 2018 S560 and 2021 GLS450, once the trunk is open, it does not need the key in the vicinity to close and lock the vehicle. It just will not do that if the key is actually in the vehicle cabin somewhere.

 

Thank you for sharing, Quad. I'll try that next time it happens.

 

Swiping doesn't seem to be necessary, but there are two sensors on the handle. As long as you touch one of the two areas, the handle should extend. The same two areas are used to lock the car. I generally just use the back of my hand against the door handle to lock my car. I never touch the square, unless I wanna use the convenience close function. Then you have to touch and hold the square until the windows and sunroof are closed.

 

After reading through these posts, here is what MAY have happened - I'll need to test to see if I can duplicate so MBUSA can be made aware:

1. I exited the car leaving my wallet in the storage area in the center console, my phone and key were against each other in the side area next to the cup holders (actually touching each other), but my phone was not in the charging area.
2. I did not lock the doors, but I did open the trunk either from the trunk release button on the driver's door or from the latch release on the trunk (I can't remember which) then got out some items out of the trunk that I tossed in the trashcan near the gas pumps
3. What I did next may be the key (no pun intended) - I either touched the close button on the trunk lid or I touched the lock button on the trunk lid
4. After I finished refueling, I realized the doors were locked.

I will try to recreate this scenario - but as @superswiss said before, this may well be a weird anomaly that may never happen again. I would like to recreate only because it will bug me if it in fact is a gremlin (again no pun intended).

 

I think it’s smart to keep a spare key in a safe place, but not inside the car. Some people carry a spare in their wallet or hide it in a magnetic box under the car. Just be aware that hiding it under the car can be a bit risky.

 

I just tried this, the lock button on the trunk lid does nothing when I did not have the key with me. The close trunk button did work but doors remained open.

 

That is how it's supposed to work. I just double-checked as well and I can't lock the car from the outside unless the fob is detected near where I'm standing. I've even attempted to lock it from the trunk button with the fob to the side of the car and that didn't work. The fob has to be in the trunk area. From my experience this is consistent across all models, at least as of 2019. It makes common sense, too. Only the person in possession of the fob should be able to lock the car.