Arty101

Stupid me, this weekend while I was at the local In & Out burger joint, I left my car running. With the ICE shutoff, the wife talking a mile a minute, and the guy parked next to me with their kids slamming the door, I rushed out of the car without realizing that it was still on. I'm sure it gonged at me, but with all the screaming kids and the wife, I wasn't paying attention.

I come back about 40 minutes later, and wondered why the dash lights were on. When I hit the start button, it shut down. I didn't realize that it was running all that time. How stupid is that? Okay, don't answer that.

Lexusxoxo

Can you lock the doors from the outside with it running?
I'm always afraid I'm going to do what you did..

jbm79

No, you will not be able to lock the door from the outside when the car is still on.

bc6152

An unfortunate lesson learned and I hope no permanent damage. Remember Art, this is why they put erasers on pencils... Not an exclusive club...

Lexusxoxo

Good to know!

Arty101

No damage. I'm not sure, but I don't think the engine kicked on since it was off when I returned. I suspect jbm is correct that you can't lock the door so I think not only was the car "running", but it was unlocked too. The wife said it could be worst if someone decided to take it for a test spin.

atoyota

Hopefully it isn't a sign of senior moments, I have them.

I've actually had this happen when having both my Camry hybrid and the ES300h valet parked. It did happen a lot more with the Camry I think because they just were't familiar with anything but Prius at that time. But a few months ago I had the ES300h brought back to me after an hour and a half and the split screen display (by way of fuel/mpg display) showed the engine had been coming on every 8-10 minutes or so the whole time. They did turn the auto headlamps off though.

The most comical experience with the valet has been when they went out to get the Camry, pressed the start button and the ICE didn't start and they didn't know what to do. The fellow came back to the stand and told me he thought the battery was low because it would start. I enjoyed that one.

jbm79

Hey Arty, the ICE was probably off when you got back because it had already recharged your hybrid battery

But yeah, I would be devastated if you don't find your car at the parking space you left it at. Sometimes I doubt myself if I had locked the doors because sometimes we get into the habit of locking it and not really thinking about it. So after I have already walked several feet from the car and wonder if I did lock the door, I would go ahead and press the lock button on the remote anyway just to make sure. So if you don't hear the car locking, then more than likely the engine is still running

Arty101

Ah, you already figured it out. I chalk it up to "another" senior moment. At least you can blame the valets for not understanding the start button on the hybrids.

Arty101

Could very well be. I did notice that the battery level dropped from almost full to a few bars. I also was wondering why the car wasn't too hot inside. I had only the vent air blowing (no AC) and it was in the high 70s. That should have been a clue.

I usually have my keyless remote in my key case so I don't use the remote. I just tap the lock on the door. You can't pull on the door handle to check if it's locked since it will just unlock it. I should do a better job of listening to Lexi instead of the wife .

wasjr

Arty, I have never done anything that stupid....... although I may have hurriedly started backing a previous MDX out of the garage before the door was up all the way and peeled off the air deflector. Fortunately it had not been installed properly and popped off with minimal damage.

bootman

This all sounds like an anti carjacking feature.
Think about the possible scenarios and then it starts to make some sense.
Scary huh?

Arty101

If you have the engine running, and you either leave or get kicked out , the door may not lock but anybody else can still drive off?

Arty101

Thanks for reminding me about my "senior" moment. I've also heard about people driving in/out of their garage forgetting about their bikes mounted on the roof. Ouch .

steig

similar thing happened to me. Was at a friend's house watching a football game for a few hours, came out and car was still on.