The fact that the front doors both unlock when a single handle is pulled is because there's an electronic sensor and solenoid that unlocks everything when one handle is opened.
I had a Pontiac Vibe (really a Toyota Matrix) that had a cable in the door unlock assembly fail. You could open the door from the outside - the external door handle was physically the same part as the latch mechanism - but the external handle was back by your shoulder, while the internal handle was forward by the mirror and connected to the latch by a steel cable swaged to some aluminum pins; that connection eventually failed and the internal door handle flapped impotently.
I spent an embarrassing amount of time ignoring the problem and instead rolling down the window to open the door...
Regardless, it's not that much of a stretch to imagine that an automotive engineer might decide to replace cable actuator with a wire and solenoid.
Or with a bunch of CANBUS electromechanical hardware and some shittily written software running on the entertainment unit (with insecure cellular network connectivity).
I wonder how long before someone sets up unlockyourtoyota.ru where you can send them 0.01BTC to unlock the car you're stuck inside?
Low effort comment I know, but I had to let you know.
The fact that it's a russian site made my day. Russian hackers man...
I've noticed that on both our 1995 and 2014 Fords, when you pull the door handle it mechanically unlocks that door and opens it. (On the 2014 the other doors may additionally be triggered to unlock. However, in a no-power situation pulling the handle will still mechanically unlock just that one door.)
Here's a video describing how to use the manual overrides (none are in plain sight)... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLDqmGQU6L0
Here's a photo of thee door interior (with no mechanical door pull)... https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/7I8AAOSwF-tgN5U1/s-l300.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purvis_Eureka
I spent a lot of time helping build it.
He got the "electric roof" version, which had this awful hodgepodge for pneumatic rams, high pressure air hoses and couplings, and a seriously underpowered hydraulic pump - with instructions to fill the system with auto transmission fluid.
It was _not_ a well designed and reliable system, and some of the failure modes left the roof/door clamped down. He kept a pocket knife in th4e glovebox so you could stab the hoses to release the hydraulic fluid and manually push the roof open.
It wasn't until it failed closed while he was taking his girlfriend to the high school formal/dance, then ruined her dress by getting red auto trans fluid on it that he bit the bullet and threw all the supplied parts away and replaced it all with electric liner actuators...
I’ve always considered this a serious safety design flaw.
[0] Why? Why do kids do anything, really?
https://mechanics.stackexchange.com/questions/52480/is-the-d...
Unfortunately, this is not anymore warranted. Already in models of ten years ago, there do exist "full lock non mechanically overridable" and "lock which is unlocked through the handles". Disabling the "feature" requires intervention from the manufacturer - if it can be disabled at all.
Look, I am informed that in at least many of the current cars with RFID based keys, it is impossible to lock yourself in the car... (And the idea seems to have spawned from manufacturers coming from the territories in the world most notorious for carjacking.)
> the 2007 Corvette has a manual release located on the floorboard by the driver's seat
Having random cables cut doesn't help the situation, but the issue was not knowing how to manually release the latch and not having an emergency window breaker.
The problem is there is a door handle that is designed with a failure mode such that pulling the handle DOES NOT OPEN THE DOOR.
Design matters, and bad designs can literally be deadly. Why auto mfgs feel the need to "innovate" with shifter designs is beyond me. The worst part is how every mfg seems to be implementing a different design of bad electronic shifters, from wheels and touchscreens to one-click-at-a-time joysticks to single-function pushbuttons for some gears with others on a scroll wheel. They've taken something and made it worse with no benefit to the user. At least with those auto-flushing toilets, the intention was good, even if the implementation is still somehow so awful decades later.
It’s sad he died but I found that handle in the first 5 minutes of owning my first corvette. It has a giant red picture of the door opening.
OSHA actually outlines the preference:
1) Eliminate the hazard outright (not possible here, you need the door to lock sometimes)
2) Engineer out the risk (they tried to do...poorly...with the manual unlock)
3) Administrative controls (e.g., the manual)
4) Personal protective equipment
Tip for readers: if your car has removable headrests, they can serve effectively as emergency window breakers.
You have to insert the metal rod between the bottom of the window and the door card and use leverage to pry at the window until it cracks
I am willing to bet my house that half the people who built that car would not find the lever if it suddenly caught fire (or any other emergency) while they are in it
Is it, is that really the issue?
It was the battery cable or similar, which cut power to all the electronic means of getting out - including the other door. It was not "cut" in the sense of someone using a knife, it just came loose or similarly broke contact. This is a design failure, not a RTFM failure.
Nope, not that model.
I had the chance to take one of the Fisker Karma development vehicles home from work. Everyone said it drove great. I got in and realized the door latch was a button. The whole car way prototype and development parts. The window was kinda small to crawl through. I said no thanks. There was a loop of string in the bottom of the door pocket to manually open it. Still nope.
For example, you don't want your kids to open the doors while you're driving. Or you don't want a car-jacker to reach through the window and open your door.
This is about whether pulling the door latch auto-unlocks the door, or if you have to unlock the door first before pulling the door latch.
In this specific scenario, you still have a component failure. Something that was supposed to be connected wasn't. It would be nice if they designed a better fail safe but it's not a case of "corvette handles aren't designed to unlock."
My 2013 car has a physical lock pull, which the door lever is connected to, so the lock opens when you pull the lever to open the door.
Teslas have an (emergency?) mechanical release on their doors. At least the Model 3 does. Given that you can't 'lock from the outside' in the ordinary sense, if this law exists, there must be some leeway.
Happened to my friends at least a couple of times when giving them a ride. Imo, not a bad situation, because the worst case scenario here is that they will accidentally use an emergency release instead of the standard one on their first try, which will only trigger tesla to make a warning sound that the emergency release was used. Definitely works out better in a real emergency situation too, compared to cars with difficult to find emergency release handles, given people not familiar with Tesla doors tend to reach for the emergency handles in those by default at times.
