A mother-of-three has posted a frightening warning to other parents who drive cars with keyless entry when her luxury car deadlocked itself on a hot summer’s day with her three children – one just 12 weeks old locked inside.
Despite numerous attempts to unlock it from the inside by her brave five-year-old, the car would not unlock stranding her children inside the dangerously hot vehicle.
The still shaken mum says the terrifying experience has left her so shocked she still can’t talk about it without crying.
The incident comes just weeks after a group of consumers in the US filed a class action claiming the feature of hands-free and remote locking and unlocking of car doors in some BMWs is defective, causing vehicles to “spontaneously lock” while keys and sometimes drivers’ children are inside the car.
Haidee Keegan from Sydney says that a month ago, on a hot Sydney day she put her three kids, aged five, two and just three-months-old in their BMW X5.
She says she put her baby, Scout in her car sear and placed her car key next to the baby capsule.
“I have done that as a regular practice, but this time I shut the door without first grabbing the key. “
She says “realising I’d left the key next to the seat, I went to open the door to grab it. But the door locked. I went around to the driver’s door. It was locked. I went to every door & boot, all locked.”
Haidee told The Motherish that she has no idea how the car became locked inside, she says she has a feature called "comfort access" which means you don't need to be holding the key to open and start the car, the key just needs to be nearby, or in the car.
“I couldn't understand when I tried to open the door why it wouldn't open.”
Top Comments
Same thing has very recently started happening to my 2010 BMW 123D. Same exact remote as shown in your photo. However, I believe it is more likely to be a defect in the sensor inside the car that is the culprit, as my wife's remote causes same behaviour. While driving along, car cycles from all doors locked to driver's side unlocked to all doors unlocked and then back to all locked. Changes occur "at random" every minute or two. It happens much less when engine is not running. It is a safety issue and potentially a security issue. In some places, doors need to be locked and to stay locked as one drives around..
The same exact thing happened to us with our six month old inside. It was 90 degrees out and I was leaving my office, and I put my bag in the car then placed the baby inside and shut the door. When I grabbed the drivers side handle all the doors locked. I began smashing the window with a rock and it crumbled as well, thank god we own a construction company and there was a rubble pile next to my car and I threw a brick through the window and got the baby out. I called BMW North America and they told me to follow up with my local dealership Inskip West Warwick and they didn't call me back for almost 2 days. I posted something on facebook and found out other similar situations and they must have seen the posts and they called me a few days later.
BMW took my car for over 6 weeks with hardly any communication about what was happening with the car until my husband freaked out and demanded that the car be fixed and returned to us. It took them an additional couple of weeks to let us know that "The investigation was over and the engineer could not find anything wrong with the car" They offered us a salesman approach to the situation. They offered us "a onetime goodwill gesture of the reimbursement of your glass repair." and "If you would like to take advantage of this offer, please review, sign and notarize the General Release that I have attached for your review. We ask that you expedite this matter promptly and return the “notarized” copy via email to keira.henry@bmwnaext.com." The general release stated that BMW could not be held responsible for any further issues.
They also offered us an "Owner Loyalty offer" if we purchased a new BMW with-in the year they would give us $3000 off and again asked that we expedite the matter and return the notarized copy to them.
There was no expediting our situation.
I responded to them with what we expected of them and how we felt about the salesman approach to the situation. Keira Henry asked that we discuss over the phone. I left a voicemail with a promise of a response by the end of the day with no response till the end of the next day. I called her back again yesterday with no response yet.
This is a very dangerous situation and BMW is just playing it off like it is no big deal. Wait till a child or an elderly person dies in one of their cars. I am beyond upset about this whole thing and would discurrage anyone from buying a BMW product. I hate the car and just want to get rid of it.