2004 Yaris auto door locking

[Keith276]

Hello, i've owned a 2004 1.0 litre yaris for around 5 years now and while its not cost me much to keep on the road and never once broken down, i have to say that i really hate this car.

We have the back seats folded up and use it like a little van really for our 4 dogs. This is where my my main problem with the car comes in.....

I have to get hold of 4 dogs on their leads and take them out to the car safely, so i unlock the car, put the keys in my pocket, get hold of the dog leads and walk to the car, but thanks to this stupid auto door locking system its all one mad rush, as i know i only have 20 seconds or so before the car locks itself again and i have to try and get the keys out of my pocket to unlock it again. Its a total pain in the backside. A few times i have ended up dropping one of the leads by accident while i'm trying to unlock the car again.

I unlocked the car for a reason and i don't want it locking on its own. When making the car, did nobody consider a situation where the owner unlocks the car and then might have to carry boxes or something to the car. If they feel they must have this auto locking system, why didn't they make it lock itself after around 5 minutes rather than a matter of seconds! Also, the boot randomly decides if its  going to unlock or not when i unlock the car. Many times i unlock the car, manage to get to it in time before it locks again, only to find the boot is still locked until i press the unlock button a second time. Its not a case of the boot needing the unlock button to be pressed twice to unlock it, as most of the time the boot does unlock when i unlock the car. It just has these random occations when the boot stays locked.

My other problems with the car are:

There is no air escape for the doors, so 9 times out of 10 when i close the door its not fully closed and i have to open it and close it again. If as i'm closing the door my wife is getting out and her door is open, then my door ends up slamming shut because there is no air trap.

The seatbelts have about as much power as the engine. Even when there is no twist in the belts, they don't have the power to retract themselves and we have to manually feed the seatbelts in.

My seatbelt never pops out when i push the red button to open it either. I have to push the red button and then pull it out.

So every time i park the car, i have to manually pull my seatbelt undone, then i have to manually feed the seatbelt away, then i end up closing the door two or three times. Its just a !Removed! horrible car.

Putting the car in reverse is almost always a problem, its either crashing it into reverse like some old american truck, or moving the car forward a bit until its happy to go into reverse.

The car ii dangerous on the motorway when its windy. A gust of wind and that thing would be off the road if your not concentrating like a red arrows pilot while driving it. It has to be the most unstable car i have ever driven!

The ABS system is dangerous too and has almost given me a heart attack many times.

But after all my moaning about this horrible car that i just can't afford to replace, i would really like to know if there is a way of disabling the stupid auto locking system so i can put an end to this race against time every time im taking the dogs to the car?

 

Keith

[FROSTYBALLS]

Surely if you leave one of the doors slightly open, the auto locking won't operate.

[Keith276]

Yeah that would work, but that means unlocking the car, walking to it to open a door and then going back to the house to get the dogs. While doing that isn't the end of the world or anything, you shouldn't have to do that just because they decided to give you seconds to get to your car before it locks itself again.

[Jonmartin]

I’d unlock the car, whilst standing next to it. Open the hatch, and then go and get the dogs.

[mrpj]

57 minutes ago, Jonmartin said:

I’d unlock the car, whilst standing next to it. Open the hatch, and then go and get the dogs.

Yes, it really is that simple.

[Keith276]

So i take it there is no way to disable the 20 second auto door lock then.

When i had my Ford Mondeo, there were methods to change so many settings like that, so i thought maybe Toyota had the same options. Then again though, the Mondeo had working seatbelts too.

Keith

[mrpj]

My remark is a bit cheeky Keith.

Something you could try, if you haven't already, which works on my car. Unlock using the fob, open and close a door then walk away. My doors do not self lock after I've done this. I'm sure my Mk 2 was the same.

I too, don't like this self lock feature, I would prefer to decide when to lock and unlock my car!

[Keith276]

Not to worry, i didn't read it as being cheeky or anything like that

Thanks for your replies.

Keith

[alan333]

Could the auto lock time be adjusted using techstream, or could it be disabled?

[Cyker]

It's mainly like that to stop people breaking into the car if you accidentally unlock it; I find I'm always accidentally unlocking the car when I put the keys in my pocket and walk away and I credit this system for stopping my car from being broken into when I'm parked in Tottenham 

Given how relatively low-tech the Mk1 Yaris is I doubt it can be changed with Techstream, but might be worth asking a local Mr T.

 

But can't you just hook the keyring on your finger so you can hold the leads AND the key in a position you can unlock it when you actually want to open the car? I've carried large loads with both hands and still been able to unlock the car and kick the boot open with my foot, and I can't imagine what you are doing that is more awkward than that!

The seatbelt retraction and ejection things are not normal, might be wear or dirt or something fouling the latch and/or the reel? Never had that problem with my Mk1 - It always ejected the belt just right, and pulled it into the reel perfectly. Ironically, the Mk2 I have now has the opposite problem to you - The latch practically fires the seatbelt out on release - On its own that wouldn't be too bad, but the reel also pulls quite strongly and the thing just whips across me if I don't hold onto it! I've already put a dent in the bodywork where I had my door open when releasing the seatbelt...!

 My dad's Verso's rear- seatbelts had the same problem you describe so I know what you mean tho'. We fixed the sticky latches by spraying zero-residue contact cleaner into the mechanism which helped a bit. The retraction was something I couldn't be ubikd to do as it looked very fiddly to pull all the interior trim out to replace the retractor... However, it turned out it was just dirt! A friend tipped me off something that worked for them - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XL8QbooM84

They're still a bit sluggish, but we don't have to feed them anywhere near as much, so might be worth a go for you too!

 

[alan333]

21 hours ago, alan333 said:

Could the auto lock time be adjusted using techstream, or could it be disabled?

I remembered posting images of Techstream a while ago.  The auto lock on a 12 plate Avensis can be changed to 30, 60 or 120 secs right enough, perhaps yours would be the same, see here for the images (in the last post, on page 2)...