can't open doors from inside when locked, frustrating

The Ridgeline auto locks doors when you starting driving by default, fine, I like that. When you put it into park it will unlock the driver door but no others. Kinda of pain when you have passengers and they can't get out until you hit the unlock button. You can set it to disable the auto lock feature which would solve that but I like the auto lock. I don't understand why they just don't make the doors be able to open from the inside whether it's locked or not. The rear doors have the kiddie lock so you can set that so they can never get out themselves.

I think this will come in handy when I pick up pretty women hitch hikers on the side of the road. :D ;)

What was Honda possibly thinking when they came up with this scheme...? Can anyone think of a reason why the interior door locks should prevent an exit for ALL occupants at any time? My 99 F150 had this altogether right many years ago.

This seems like a safety issue. What happens in an accident, when all passengers may need to get out quick? I can't believe Honda went brain-dead on this item.

Jab_od,

This is just a guess, but likely for the same reason as the glow in dark handle in trunk, KIDS. If you have truck full of them, you don't want them grabbing the handle and opening the door, the second you put it in park, this way you control the exit when its safe. As for someelses comment about quick exit in an accident, who stops to put it in park?

What was Honda possibly thinking when they came up with this scheme...? Can anyone think of a reason why the interior door locks should prevent an exit for ALL occupants at any time? My 99 F150 had this altogether right many years ago.

What kills me is the Auto Up/Down window. Why do they insist, and Honda's not the only one, in making this work only for the driver side window? One touch up/down should be on the drivers panel for EVERY window in the vehicle.

One other thing I noticed is that you can still put up the windows when the key is out the ignition, as long as you don't open the driver door. I can't tell you how many hundreds of times I've been frustrated with that aspect when the family seems to be daydreaming when I stop to get out of my 98 CRV and someone else's window is still down and such. My Toyota T-100 could always put the window up and down with the key not in. Bout time someone put it in the newest Honda. For all I know, maybe other newer Honda models do it correctly. Just a tidbit to throw out there.

I believe the reason that all of the doors do not unlock automatically when the ignition is turned off is due to a general safety issue. For example, if you went somewhere at night and went to get out of her car...if all four doors unlocked someone could jump in the car and jack you.

I guess they cannot assume there will always be up to 4 passengers in the vehicle, but they know there will always be a driver (one hopes).

I believe the reason that all of the doors do not unlock automatically when the ignition is turned off is due to a general safety issue. For example, if you went somewhere at night and went to get out of her car...if all four doors unlocked someone could jump in the car and jack you.

I guess they cannot assume there will always be up to 4 passengers in the vehicle, but they know there will always be a driver (one hopes).

But still, my old antiquitated 99 F150 locks the doors when you remove your foot from the brake pedal after engaging the transmission; then, the doors open when any passenger pulls the release handle to exit. Heinrich is still safely locked in and safe from carjackers until one passenger opens a door. It has no safety over-ride for children, but that could be a useful addition for those drivers with young children. Wife's 02 Civic has a manual switch on driver's door that locks all doors, but NOBODY exits until the driver remembers to throw that switch up after stopping, engaging transmission in park position, and removing key. More than a daily annoyance. Honda Think-Tank needs to have another look at Ford.

LOL, well I would simply turn that feature off so it won't be an issue. Either way it is not essential.

Appears the QuickStart guide and the manual say different things about this but the Quickstart seems to have it right. The manual says, for the same procedure, it will unlock "all" doors when put into park. I really want that but just the darn driver and trunk unlock, grrrrrr.

Does anyone know if this is something that Honda can simply fix with a programmable change or is this feasible?

Does anyone know if this is something that Honda can simply fix with a programmable change or is this feasible?

Appears it's not, it would require a new module.

More than a daily annoyance. Honda Think-Tank needs to have another look at Ford.

The ability to open the front doors when they are "locked" is one of the major annoyances in my Ford Crown Victoria and an old Taurus that I had before that. In my Odyssey, I always lock the doors when I start driving and hit the unlock switch when I park. A habit I picked up when transporting a youth group, as other have pointed out to keep them from leaping out into danger. Thankfully, Honda didn't look to Ford on this one IMHO.

How do you change the feature that auto locks the doors when you put the vehicle in drive?

It's in the manual. You have to do something like open the door, engage the parking brake turn the vehicle to on, hold down the drivers door lock until you hear a click, etc etc. I did it the other day.

You can also enable it to unlock the doors when you put the truck in park or when the key is in the Off position. The proceedures are variations on the above, like no park brake, or drivers door is closed.

I changed the doors in our RTL to lock when moving out of Park (vs. the 9mph thing). Worked fine.

I am surprised though that the Unlock doesn't (apparently) work as stated in the manual. It happens (for us anyway) that it works the way we want it to work, unlocking only the driver's side (and the inbed trunk I think) but not the passenger doors. Irritating for passengers I guess, until the driver gets the hang of manually unlocking the doors at shutdown; we'll see long term how this plays out.

There maybe hope for this issue I've learned. As always there has to be enough demand before any change will be made. I encourage everyone to call American Honda and complain about not having the "ALL" door unlock feature.

(800) 999-1009

My old 98 Audi A6 had the best solution,

If a door was locked it would require 2 pulls of the door handle. The first pull unlocked the door, the second pull opened the door. (you could press the button instead)

It was a nice system since when someone tries to open a locked car door they normally will try two times before figuring out the door is locked.

With that said, I still want the option of ALL doors unlocking on the Ridgeline.

If enough people complain I am sure Honda would issue a controller for the doors.

-W