Car would not unlock this morning (after the trunk opened)! Locked out!

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This issue happened to me today morning. I placed my bag inside the trunk - the car was locked. After I closed the trunk door, the blinkers turned on - in a solid mode and the car would not unlock. I tried opening with a manual key, but still the car would not unlock. It is a open parking lot. Any one has any suggestions?
Update - the issue got resolved by itself. When I went down now, the blinkers had turned off and I was able to open the driver door with the manual key, checked all functions everything worked quite normally. Anyway, I'm planning to visit the dealership and then go to work.
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This issue happened to me today morning. I placed my bag inside the trunk - the car was locked. After I closed the trunk door, the blinkers turned on - in a solid mode and the car would not unlock. I tried opening with a manual key, but still the car would not unlock. It is a open parking lot. Any one has any suggestions?
The manual key has always worked for me. Maybe you need to turn it a bit harder
 

Charlie

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This morning in my garage I did my exact same routine that I've been doing for months:

1. Opened the trunk by pressing the button on the lid. But my backpack in. Closed the lid.
2. Went to the driver door to pull the handle to unlock the door.

But the door didn't unlock!

That's weird. So I fished out the remote from my pocket, and the unlock button didn't work either!

So I went back to the trunk, and the lid button stopped working too!

Strangely, the amber/orange turn signal lights were solidly lit.

I separated out the emergency key (which was hard since my leather key case was really tight) and manually unlocked the driver door. Immediately the alarm went off. I pressed the unlock button on my remote and it shut off the alarm.

Has this happened to anyone else?
Thanks. Just happened to me and read this to get the fix. Appreciated. I haven’t had it happen so far in the year I’ve owned it. Weird lol
 

John115

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Second time it happened to me. Two nights ago I take package out of the trunk and go inside . Come back out 15 minutes later and can’t get in the car . Nothing works ,trunk , fob, took out emergency key and that didn’t work. 30 minutes later the lights blink and car is back to normal. Second time in a year this has happened. Roadside assistant never seen anything like it. Both times it happened I took something out of the trunk. Anyone else have any answers . My Honda dealer no help .
 


John115

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Second time it happened to me. Two nights ago I take package out of the trunk and go inside . Come back out 15 minutes later and can’t get in the car . Nothing works ,trunk , fob, took out emergency key and that didn’t work. 30 minutes later the lights blink and car is back to normal. Second time in a year this has happened. Roadside assistant never seen anything like it. Both times it happened I took something out of the trunk. Anyone else have any answers . My Honda dealer no help .
 

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This issue happened to me today morning. I placed my bag inside the trunk - the car was locked. After I closed the trunk door, the blinkers turned on - in a solid mode and the car would not unlock. I tried opening with a manual key, but still the car would not unlock. It is a open parking lot. Any one has any suggestions?
I know I'm bumping an older thread here. This has happened to me twice now and it's pretty frustrating. I have a 2016 Touring that I bought in August of this year (35k miles) and the two episodes both happened in the last few weeks.

Both scenarios I opened the trunk using the touch/proximity button on the trunk lid, put stuff in the trunk, closed the trunk, and then all four hazard lights on the car lit up solidly and the car stopped responding. The physical key did not work to unlock the car. I called AAA and they unlocked it in 30 seconds flat and after turning off the car alarm all was back to normal. I then took apart the door handle and the locking mechanism was not installed correctly, which is likely my fault because I took off the handles to vinyl wrap them black. I corrected this and confirmed that the physical key was working.

A few weeks later (tonight) the car did the same thing but the physical key did not work, despite confirming the mechanism was intact. I called AAA and went back into my girlfriend's apartment for ~35 minutes. I got the call that they were 5 minutes away so went outside and the hazard lights were now off so on a whim a tried the physical key again and this time it unlocked and the car alarm went off etc but it was all back to normal afterwards. Looked a bit silly having the AAA guy showing up to a car that was now open :rolleyes:

So it seems that eventually the car will reset and the physical key will work again, but only the physical key as none of the other proximity/fob functions work. I'm not sure how long it takes as I didn't sit there waiting for the hazard lights to turn off.

Have there been any updates regarding this problem? Any software fix from Honda? Even if the physical key eventually works you still have to wait around for the car to reset or whatever it's doing, which is a huge issue if you're trying to get to work on time, not in a safe area, etc.

Some other threads with the same issue:
  1. https://www.civicx.com/threads/the-car-locked-me-out-twice-now.4347/
  2. https://www.civicx.com/threads/car-possessed-sometimes-door-does-not-open-with-fob.3829/
  3. Some in this thread https://www.civicx.com/threads/had-to-use-the-actual-key.1430/
  4. https://www.civicx.com/threads/odd-behaviour-with-my-civic.1518/
  5. https://www.civicx.com/threads/2nd-time-since-i-have-had-the-car-and-its-locked-me-out.4303/
  6. https://www.civicx.com/threads/my-civic-touring-tried-to-lock-me-out-of-my-car.2586/
 
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Scathe

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Hopefully this never happens to me. I bought mine used; came with the smart key and additional non-smart-key FOB, but no physical key! Any solution for fixing this if you don't have a physical key? How expensive would it be to have a physical key made or change the lock so I can have a key?
 

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On the back of the fob, there is a tiny latch/lever and if you slide it over and pull on the top chrome half ring, a physical key will pop out.
 


Peacefulness

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Very relieved to find that this has happened to others as well.
2016 civic
opened trunk with fob, closed it as usual
fob stopped working, amber turn signal lights on (no flashing) both front and rear.
LED on fob lights up to indicate button presses, but otherwise has no effect on car.

Called the dealer. They have never heard of this happening.
Advised me to physically open the door with the key, which set off the alarm.
Inserted the key in the ignition to stop alarm, and everything seems fine now.

Bizarre.
 

nizarz

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This morning in my garage I did my exact same routine that I've been doing for months:

1. Opened the trunk by pressing the button on the lid. But my backpack in. Closed the lid.
2. Went to the driver door to pull the handle to unlock the door.

But the door didn't unlock!

That's weird. So I fished out the remote from my pocket, and the unlock button didn't work either!

So I went back to the trunk, and the lid button stopped working too!

Strangely, the amber/orange turn signal lights were solidly lit.

I separated out the emergency key (which was hard since my leather key case was really tight) and manually unlocked the driver door. Immediately the alarm went off. I pressed the unlock button on my remote and it shut off the alarm.

Has this happened to anyone else?
Last summer I had a similar issue. Worked fine until one day I got home after work and the car wouldn't lock.....ok strange....so checked to make sure the doors are all closed, yep.....try again, nothing. Went in the house and replaced the battery in the fob....nothing. Odd. Got my spare key and tried it and it worked fine. Tried the main key again and it started working fine. I put it down to maybe some glitch in the remote system. Its never happened since though.
 

BaltOsFan

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This happened to me for the second time yesterday, the first time only being a month ago. My key fob was in my pocket, went to put something in my trunk, opened it up put my bag in, closed it, started to go toward the driver's door, nothing worked. The 4 orange/yellow lights were all on, no buttons worked on the fob, the physical key didn't work, but fortunately the alarm wasn't going off. The only difference was that last time after about 45 minutes, the lights went off and my key fob worked. This time, well, it's up to about 14 hours since it happened and still can't get in.

Anyone find a solution or get Honda to admit there's a problem? It seems like this is happening to mostly 2016 models.
 

nizarz

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This happened to me for the second time yesterday, the first time only being a month ago. My key fob was in my pocket, went to put something in my trunk, opened it up put my bag in, closed it, started to go toward the driver's door, nothing worked. The 4 orange/yellow lights were all on, no buttons worked on the fob, the physical key didn't work, but fortunately the alarm wasn't going off. The only difference was that last time after about 45 minutes, the lights went off and my key fob worked. This time, well, it's up to about 14 hours since it happened and still can't get in.

Anyone find a solution or get Honda to admit there's a problem? It seems like this is happening to mostly 2016 models.
My 2017 does this sometimes and its not a push button start. The car doesn't respond to any commands from the fob/key. Happened to me twice. Thought it was the battery so changed batteries and still. Resolved itself but extremely frustrating when you need to drive somewhere and the car wont open.
 

BaltOsFan

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My 2017 does this sometimes and its not a push button start. The car doesn't respond to any commands from the fob/key. Happened to me twice. Thought it was the battery so changed batteries and still. Resolved itself but extremely frustrating when you need to drive somewhere and the car wont open.
The next time it happens, don't replace the battery. I should've said this in my first post here, but after each time I was able to get in the car, it started right up like nothing happened. Both the car battery and the key fob battery are 100% fine and (knocks on wood) haven't been a problem since I got into it about 24-ish hours ago.
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