Author: Trevor1959ZA
Subject: Can you activate anti hijack / auto locking?
Posted: 18 Jun 2014 at 1:09pm
Mine is the same, and here in South Africa we are in a high-risk country, with hijackings, murders a daily occurrence. I asked my dealer about it and he said they have enquired about a software patch from Ford, to enable the autolocking. According to him, several of his customers have asked for it, citing the same reasons as me.
Subject: Can you activate anti hijack / auto locking?
Posted: 18 Jun 2014 at 1:09pm
Mine is the same, and here in South Africa we are in a high-risk country, with hijackings, murders a daily occurrence. I asked my dealer about it and he said they have enquired about a software patch from Ford, to enable the autolocking. According to him, several of his customers have asked for it, citing the same reasons as me.
From an electrical engineering point of view, I can see no reason why it can't be enabled if the customer requests it. All the hardware is there. It's purely a software function.
I tried the procedure on Fordowner.com, which is for the model sold in the States (Ford Escape), essentially the same vehicle. I get the chirps when entering and exiting programming mode, but I don't get the chirp to confirm that the setting has toggled.
I'll see if it locks when I drive home this afternoon, but I doubt it. The other posts indicate that the setting is there, but it needs to be enabled at a higher level in the software. It's probably locked out for a specific market, but why should the rest of us suffer because of that. It should be user-selectable.
I can't understand why they would lock it out in the software. Most modern cars unlock all the doors if the airbags deploy so that old argument about being able to get out after an accident doesn't hold water.