Central Locking : Front Door Locks

I dont know whether any else has actually noticed this. But i discovered a major bug in the machine.

Central lock the machine, whether from inside or outside does not matter.
Once you do this all four doors' lock knobs shall go down.
Now on any of the front door whether left or right does not matter, try to open the door from inside without touching the already locked door knob.

See what happens.

To my strange surprise doors open up even if they are locked.
What is the meaning of putting a lock onto them?

Very dangerous if a kid is sitting in front or by mistake some one tries to play with the door opening knob while machine is in motion.

Does not make difference whether it is locked or not.

I tried this with atleast 30 Logans from a mix of various models except the 1.6 one. All behaved same. I reported this to the Mahindra showroom PUNJAB AUTOMOBILES in Ahmedabad. The guy agreed that it is a dangerous mistake left unnoticed. However he can not do anything about it.

It opens from inside but for the back doors, there is a child lock, its beneath the door latch, on the door side, just slide it and the back doors wont open from inside if its locked..

icono wrote:

It opens from inside but for the back doors, there is a child lock, its beneath the door latch, on the door side, just slide it and the back doors wont open from inside if its locked..

Front doors???

Friends, there is a reason to this logic.

Few years back when Honda launched the 1st model change of the Honda City (the 2nd generation in India), there was a case on the Noida-Greater Noida Expressway, where the car which was speeding at about 120 speed late in the night, hit some side kerb, tumbled and went up in flames.

Sadly, at that time the mechanism of the locks on the door which had activated due to the central locking got jammed and doors could not be unlocked. Due to this reason, both driver and passenger were burnt to catastrophic levels.

There was an immediate mandate issued post this accident, that the front doors, irrespective of the Central Locking, SHOULD BE OPENABLE FROM INSIDE, to ward any such possibilities of the lock gettig jammed.

Simply put, the inside door handle has an override to the lock mechanism.
Most of the manufacturers globally were complying to these norms at that time already.

Coming to the point of kids being able to open the car from inside, lets understand what the law in many other countries states.

1. Kids (defined upto particular age) have to be seated only in the rear of a car.
2. Rear Doors pf a car SHOULD have a child safety lock.

In USA, seating kids in front seats is an offence. This is in order to minimise risks of injuries to minors in case of an accident.

It may make sense to have child safety locks on front doors also, but then, if they are ON, how do the driver & passenger get off?

I hope ur queries are clarified.

Kids for safety should not be in the fromt and This BUG of yours is a friendly bug Lets say you are sitting in a burning car and electrics are shot
How will you get out of your car ???
Stu

@vsuprak
@martin

i agree kids sitting in front should be illegal. However in india one hardly drives beyond some 40 kmph in city limits. Also down here people tend to make their children sit in front at times, owing to fact that the car is not going to speed up to dangerous limits. I also agree that a moving object's mass increases when in motion, so perhaps slow speed also can be dangerous.

All this is not going to change the way it is. People will not stop putting children and old age guys in front.

Car tumbling, burning etc. are extreme conditions.. where nothing can be predicted. there is no guarantee that door can open i first place, forget about whether it is locked or not.
I dont think and strongly disagree that either Renault or Mahindra has this feature due to safety reasons, specially for india. If they were so concerned of safety they would have provided Air Bags on all models as a standard.

this is purely yet another cost saving feature (renault might have this feature due to safety reasons for EU market place. now to remove and undo this feature for a different market place like India also costs huge), or a blunder, a mistake that has gone unnoticed.

i do like my logan but that does not mean i will accept this one.

You seem to be going totally on the other side of the river brother.

Try to think of it like this.

Door lock hinges are placed in the door panels.
In case of any damage on the sides, locks are prone to damage.

Having and override mechanism can still help you in acse of damages that can occur at speeds of 40kmph.

If Airbags are not standard, blame the regulations and the government that makes them. Why blame manufacturers? They aleady have variants with the safety features. And anyway you pay for them when u buy them.

Many countries have them as standard, depending on the category of the vehicle.

And then again, be prepared to pay about 2 lacs more for the car with the satisfaction that you have an airbag!!!

I agree that tumbling and burning up are rare incidents.
But manufacturers cannot take risks.

Imagine if someone known to you faced such a situation, and the doors did not open. He would definitley sue the company for not giving a provision where doors could be opened if the lock got damaged.

And speaking of cost saving, i dont find any place where they can save cost.

The simple fact is that "as long as people are willing to buy cheaper cars, you will find models with stripped features"

And lastly, Logan is not the only car with thsi mechanism on front doors.
Many other manufacturers also follow suit to this.
So, there is no need to feel cheated on this case

though i am not at all convinced, but i believe @vsuprak has give me some points which i will put across whenever someone brings this problem to my notice....
However this also means no child can sit in front seat as they wont listen to my points. This is in a way good....

we are discussing about after accident scenario..

i would say this feature itself can become cause for accident.

may be the feature will first cause accident and then save the survivors. After this the survivor will repair his car. so company got more monies....

ha ha ha.... kidding....

@Mir... -->
@vsuprak -->
@martin245 -->

To add on to what vsuprak has stated, may I quote an example!

When Matiz was launched in India (what seems like a looo..ong while ago), it was perhaps the most technologically advanced car in the market in its class! Its success, most observers say, forced Maruti to upgrade its technology.

One of its USP was that the front doors "WILL NOT GET JAMMED IN CASE OF AN ACCIDENT". Lo behold, there indeed was an accident and the front doors did get jammed causing trauma & injuries. The owner promptly sued the company! I remember reading it in the papers in the "letters to the editor section" with the owner complaining that so much time has passed and no response from the Company... etc - those were not the days of active consumer courts in India.

While one argument can be that the doors got jammed despite the assurance; the more important part is that the need for this feature was felt even at that time!

The risk to kids sitting in the front seat notwithstanding, it indeed is a "friendly bug" as Stu has put it.

https://techinfo.honda.com/rjanisis/pubs/om/C39999/C39999O00031A.pdf

If you don't like this car, then buy another!

Mir does like his car he just also likes to ask lots of Questions
this is also the reason for this forum
and after your comment after just 4 posts (If you don't like this car, then buy another!) then it could be changed to this IF YOU DONT LIKE QUESTIONS ON THIS FORUM THEN FIND ANOTHER
sTU

ooo...
Chill Guys.. Lets not fight on do we love the Logan or not. Everyone here Loves the Logan.

The objective of the forum is to ask questions.. Clear your doubts.. share your expertise and much more. If no one asks questions, the forum wont exist.

smakovka, i understand your love for your Logan, but try and understand that someone who is raising doubts does not potray his hatred. He, i guess, is just trying to figure out y..

Anyways, coming to Mir..
Brother, let me give u a more relative example. U, being from Gujarat may have faced it, but we Mumbaikars face it every year. When the Rain Gods pour, Mumbai and many parts of India are Flooded. Cars submerged and people stuck inside, helpless and die either due to suffocation or water entering the Lungs. This happens because the Central/Remote Locking fails when the mechanism is submerged in the water and hence all the doors are locked.

Thanks to this thought, the Renault Engineers have put this safety feature on our Logan. You should be thanking them isnt it??

I agree that having Kids in the front seats can be a hazard, but now that you know it, WHY have them in the front. I also agree that many here do drive their kids in the front, but if you know its dangerous for your children, why do that silly thing just because everyone else does it too???

http://www.delhitrafficpolice.nic.in/seat-belt.htm

Read the above article by the Delhi Police, even though there isnt any law in India preventing it, they still advise against it.

Atleast we all agree that the feature is good.
And, also the fact that it can "in certain cases" lead to an accident.

But in the end,

Problem Understood = Problem Solved

Please explain to me how it can cause an accident?
If its about Kids opening the car door and falling out then the driver is completly at fault not Renault because these kids (In fact all passengers must be in there seatbelts ) and it is very hard to fall out of a car with a seatbelt around yourself
That about the water is also true but what is very frightning is being burnt to death behind the locked doors


FUEL FOR THOUGHT

One thing you lot have forgotten to complain about is the lack of an enertia switch .This switches of the fuel pump in an accident ..............and the logan does not have one .............so big accident !!!!!!!!fire !!!!!pump still pumping !!!! FRIGHTNING
My Twingo had a enertia switch

Stu

Right, U know the hazard, so take care. Dont seat kids in the front seat, and if u insist, like Stuart said, ask them to buckle up, Very difficult to fall then.
In my view, They should be at the back seat. Thats where they are meant to be..

I think the door loks (powered) make quite some audible sound when locked and unlocked.

While i am reall ynot sure how it was when the car was new, It is definitely louder than most other cars.

Any observations?

yes it does make audible noise, but same as day one with me.

however in all cars it makes noise and at same level.

If my memory serves me right, the owners manual says that children should not sit in the front. I think its good that the override mechanism is present.
Use the child lock when children are at the back. In my case, son opened the rear door but luckily it was at a very slow speed and no vehicles around. The only disadvantage is that if you want to open the rear doors then the driver or the front passenger will have to open the rear door from outside. They could have considered giving an option to open the rear doors by placing a mechanism at the front, next to the driver.
There doesn't seem to be any noticeable change in the level of noise when the central locking mechanism is activated.

If you read service manual carefully, you will find few features as optional present in EU cars but not launched in Indian versions.

One such feature is auto locking of all four locks when speed reaches 20 kmph - it means if you forget to lock doors before driving they will auto locked at certain speed.

This feature is present in Swift Dzire, and yes the front doors locking mechanism is fine but the danger is with those who used to take minors on front seats and this figure is huge if you compare to door lock jam situtions in India.

These options are not on our cars though !!!!we do though have a light that comes on on the dash saying that a door is open
so have you It just needs wiring

yes, we also do have the option of alarming if a door is open, but that's a sound alarm and not a light blinking.

Ahhh Mine has a red door open thingy in the dashboard