Cars used to be simple, with manual locks on each door. Today, central locking systems have given us more convenience. But some of them have a largely unknown feature which can have terrible consequences. In some cars, it’s easy to lock people inside with no way to get out. It’s rarely seen in the US, but it’s common in Europe and the UK.
It’s actually shocking when you first encounter it. You’re locked inside a car, and no matter how much you tug on the handle or the locks, you can’t open the doors. You’re imprisoned. That’s because in certain vehicles, it’s possible to “deadlock” or “super lock” the vehicle, which can trap people if you’re not careful. They’ll be stuck inside with no escape, unless they’re rescued from outside or they manage to break a window.
Let’s look at how certain cars let you trap people inside, and why. And of course, most importantly, how you can avoid accidentally activating this oddball feature.
Why Does This Feature Even Exist?
So-called “Super locking” or “deadlock” features are intended as a security measure and are implemented by a wide range of automakers, including BMW, Subaru, and Honda. The idea is that making the car impossible to unlock via the interior door handles and unlock buttons or tabs will prevent a thief from punching out a window and reaching through to unlock and open the door via the interior controls.
This locking mode is not intended to be used with people inside the vehicle, as they would be trapped inside and completely unable to get out of the vehicle short of breaking a window. But unless a vehicle has a safety system to sense occupants and prevent the mode from being activated, it’s very easy to accidentally deadlock a vehicle with the feature, leaving someone trapped inside.
In some cars, deadlocking is only activated if you double-press the lock button in quick succession. Some brands, however, activate it immediately even if the lock button is only pressed once. Thus, simply by locking the car and walking away, you could be activating the deadlock.
It’s a rare occurrence, but “deadlock” or “super locking” systems have claimed lives over the years. By making it impossible for someone inside the car to escape, they can succumb to dehydration or heat stroke on a warm day. Typically, we think of this as only affecting young children, as they aren’t old enough to figure out how to exit a vehicle on their own. However, in the case of a deadlocked or super-locked vehicle, even a healthy adult can struggle to escape, as the doors simply will not open from the inside.
Only a few vehicles sold in America have the feature. One notable case was covered by Sky News in 2013. The tragic incident in California saw Graciela Martinez die in her family’s BMW 328i. The 14-year-old student had been driven to school by her brother and decided to nap in the car before classes began. Her brother locked the vehicle for safety, not realizing she wouldn’t be able to unlock the car from inside. Nor could she honk the horn to attract help, as it was disabled by the vehicle under this condition. Her brother found her unresponsive when he returned to the vehicle after school.
The family eventually sued BMW over the matter, with ABC News later featuring stories of other individuals who had fallen victim to the same problem. At the time, BMW representatives noted a number of late ’80s and early ’90s vehicles had the feature. It’s now far less common on US market vehicles.
In spite of all this, the function is relatively common; it’s available on a wide range of modern European vehicles for a start. In these cars, it’s generally called “deadlocking.” In the case of UK market Hondas, it’s called “super locking.” It’s typically activated by pressing the lock button on the keyfob twice in quick succession. Alternatively, turning the key in the door to the locked position twice will do the same job.
As above, the UK market 2024 Honda CR-V owner’s manual states you should never activate Super Locking with people inside the vehicle. Under this condition, it becomes impossible to unlock the car from the inside. The only plausible escape is for the passengers to find a way to break the windows. Interestingly, the North American version doesn’t mention it—the feature is apparently absent in the US market model.
BMW has included the feature on some cars, as well, including in the United States. The manual for the 1997 BMW 328i explains how it works—and it’s even easier to activate. Simply locking the car with the keyfob makes it impossible to escape from the inside.
You can find deadlocks on cars from BMW, Kia, Honda, Subaru, Peugeot, Audi, and Volkswagen, among others. This isn’t an exhaustive list, either—you should read your owner’s manual and test the locking system yourself to determine if your car has this functionality.
It’s worth checking up on this on every vehicle you own. Forum posters have noted how traumatic it can be when they’ve inadvertently trapped their children in the car, even for just a few minutes. Others have posted about being trapped themselves, having to activate their car alarm to attract the attention of passers-by for a rescue.
Semi-Deadlocks Exist Too
My own 2008 BMW 320D has a similar feature. If the car is locked with the keyfob, none of the interior door handles will open the car. However, the E90 model does have a button on the dash that will unlock the doors from the inside. It’s still possible to trap people inside, however, because the button is not obvious (you can see it called out below). Unless the person who needs it knows it’s there, they may be unlikely to find and use it.
This feature isn’t universal among BMWs. Our own Thomas Hundal owns an E90 BMW of similar vintage to mine, and his doesn’t deadlock at all. Two tugs on the door handle, and you can pop right out of Thomas’s car. In mine, you’re stuck until you hit the button on the dash.
I was pretty surprised with this feature on the BMW. pic.twitter.com/rNGSgfv8Io
— Lewin S. Day (@rainbowdefault) April 9, 2024
Awareness Is Key
If you drive solo, deadlocks aren’t so dangerous. It’s rare that you’ll hit your keyfob’s lock button while you’re in the car. Even if you do, you can just hit unlock to free yourself, assuming the battery hasn’t died at that precise moment.
However, if you’re routinely driving with passengers, and especially children, you need to be very careful with deadlocks. You might think it’s safer to lock the doors to protect your passengers, but you might inadvertently be trapping them inside the vehicle. Read your manual, and understand how the locks work. Instead, it’s probably safer to have them lock the car from the inside so they won’t activate the deadlock system.
In some cases, automakers have made these systems safer over the years. Modern Mercedes-Benz vehicles tend to leave the horn enabled, for example. This lets you call for help if you’re stuck. Similarly, some modern BMWs with deadlocks at least provide a button that passengers can use to free themselves. But these features vary widely between vehicles and even the same cars sold in different markets, so check your own vehicles carefully.
Ultimately, it’s not always safe to lock a passenger inside a modern car. Even if they’re a fully-grown adult, they could be trapped inside. Make sure you know what you’re doing whenever you leave passengers in the vehicle!
Image credits: BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Honda, Peugeot
I agree this is stupid. Worth noting (but not many people will be aware) that if trapped in a car you can remove a headrest and the bottom of the metal supports are shaped into a peak so they can be used to break a window.
This isn’t always an option, not all vehicles have removeable headrests.
I’ll add the tire iron in the spare kit, or heck even the jack itself can be used to break a window.
> The idea is that making the car impossible to unlock via the interior door handles and unlock buttons or tabs will prevent a thief from punching out a window and reaching through to unlock and open the door via the interior controls.
That’s dumb. Just get into the car through the window.
This doesn’t sound like a well thought-out feature.
It’s a “hope they’ll move on to the next car rather than deal with the difficulty” type of deterrent
I agree this doesn’t help with the “break a window” scenario. I suspect that’s not actually the intended use for this though – it’s to avoid someone slimjimming your window to push the unlock button.
Still, that’s what car alarms and immobilizers are for. You don’t need to risk locking people in the car to prevent that kind of theft, and even if you did preventing a stolen car is not worth killing someone over.
child locks for the adults up front. Wow! That’s messed up
Correct me if I am wrong but a knowledgeable car person knows pushing out the windshield from inside is easy. Popping our the back of the rear seat and access the trunk and using the government required trunk release is easy unless fat like me. But no idea why this is a feature except add a useless feature add money to the sticker. I bet I could get out though.
I’m not sure if modern windshields still pop out easily, they are glued in now, unlike before, when they were held in by the rubber.
I am surprised there isn’t a requirement for safety.
I didn’t know about the windshield or trunk release thing until your comment, so thanks.
Trunk releases are only on cars with an actual trunk. SUVs don’t have them. Your car would also need a trunk passthrough which is not on every car and some are VERY small; not enough to get a human through.
Many cars today have laminated windows also, not just the windshield. If you try to break a side window or rear window, they’ll shatter, but will remain in place. You’d need something to cut the laminating film in order to get out. Fire departments use a glorified sawzall to get through them.
I feel dumb because I put one of those seat belt cutters/glass break tools in my car (06 Volvo). I had no idea that the side windows were all laminated and the tool is essentially useless. I thought laminated side windows were only used on modern luxury cars, but it’s on a LOT of average stuff since the mid 2000s like Chevy Impalas. List here: https://www.aaa.com/AAA/common/AAR/files/Laminated-Glass-Vehicle-List.pdf
It seems wild to me that that poor 14 year old girl could not free herself somehow, but given the disabled horn, laminated side glass and deadlocking, it doesn’t seem so implausible. I guess go for the back window at best? Maybe one could use both feet to kick the whole thing out.
My lowly old VX Commodore had this feature, activated by “double clicking” the lock button. It wasn’t a high trim model either, it was a government fleet special, white wagon.
The only reason I ever became aware of it was getting bored and reading the manual one day, then trying it – sure enough, it was possible to lock myself in the car and then be unable to escape without the keyfob! There would still be tens of thousands of these late 90’s and early aughts Conmodores in circulation and I would bet 90% of the owners are unaware the feature exists.
This is why I always carry at least one axe at all times, the two in the shoulder holsters are for emergencies.
You must look like an angel with those strapped to you.
Or a half assed viking lumberjack, I have been called both.
This sounds like a major decrease in safety for a trivial improvement in security. I’m baffled that this is even legal.
Us low-end Kia and Hyundai owners think deadlocks sound nifty. It would make stealing them considerably more awkward than just smashing a window and reaching inside.
It’s not the same thing, but old SAABs (93s and maybe 95s) had locks that, if you locked it with the key, that door would be snap-lock until you unlocked it with the key. You could open the door from inside, but it was waiting for you to leave the key in the ignition and get out.
I’ve never owned a 93 but that is somewhat true for my ’67 96 as well as the 95 and the 97 (Sonett) I used to have. The exterior lock, which is built into the pushbutton on the door handle, does nothing more than engage and disengage the action of the exterior pushbutton. The key has no effect on the entirely independent interior lock, as that is instead controlled exclusively by the interior locking knob. A person inside the car can therefore deny entry even to someone who has a key but it isn’t possible for a person to be trapped inside the car, as unlocking the interior knob means that the interior door handle will work just fine regardless of whether the exterior pushbutton is locked or unlocked.
Locking one’s key in the car would take a bit of work, however, as this would mean unlocking the exterior knob, entering the vehicle, reaching outside through the window with the key to relock the exterior knob, rolling up the window, putting the key in the ignition, then exiting the vehicle and closing the door. Possible to do, but probably only with planning. I suppose one could also unlock the exterior lock, open the door, relock the exterior lock with the door open, toss the key inside, then close the door, but again, this would require an unconventional set of steps to accomplish.
I don’t remember the exact sequence, as it was more than half a century ago. It didn’t result in a total lockout, either the window was open the other side of the car was unlocked, or there was somebody else in the car. Might have been a driver door locked with the key, but later unlocked by the passenger reaching over and helpfully popping the door open for an approaching driver (back when cars were smaller, such a thing was possible). But teenage me was really surprised that the door was still snaplock, and I was always skittish about them after that.
Think that “feature” went away when SAABs stopped being economy cars, or maybe earlier when the engine went to 4-cycle.
Had a buddy in university with ex cop car Volare- you couldn’t get out of the back seat if you wanted to and there were bars behind the front seats, it was handy when I was the designated driver, I would toss the drunks in the back
OK, so I’m a thief breaking a window to get access to the car. Oh no, the door handle won’t open! Four seconds later, I’ve climbed in through the f’n window I just broke or reached in and grabbed whatever I saw sitting out that I wanted to steal. So, for the statistical noise chance this would deter a thief who has already risked attracting attention by breaking the window, there’s a very real result of trapping people you don’t want to die inside. Oh, yeah, that’s brilliant.
Except with laminated glass it is hard to pull the glass out
Side glass is usually not laminated, just tempered and the intent of this “now yous can’t leave” locking system was to attempt to disallow entry after a window breakage. If they couldn’t break the glass to try to reach the inside handle, the system would be even more pointless.
There’s only one scenario where I can see this as more helpful than harmful, and that’s convertibles. Being able to park with the top down for a quick coffee/grocery/whatever stop knowing there’s no way to get into the frunk/trunk/engine bay/glovebox would be nice.
I actually have this feature on my Audi and I kinda like it …
I can leave the windows open a little bit in order to let the hot air out of the car without worrying that an opportunity thief will put his hand through the window to open the car and search for things to steal …
In my opinion is uttermost important to RTFM … In order to understand how your device works …
Also why leave someone in the car and lock him inside?
If you were a teen aged girl, would you take a nap in an unlocked car?
In case they want to maybe take a nap without having someone surprise them by opening the door and assaulting them?
Agree, this is clearly a modern case of deflecting the blame for not knowing how something works cause people didn’t bother to put effort into learning how their car works.
Cars are for transportation, not napping in a parking lot.
What?!? Who among us has never napped in a parked car?
I have not, I will not and I only know one other person who did (my dad, until one day he woke up to a cop rapping on the window to make sure he was alive). You are mistaken thinking that this is something everyone does.
Let’s see I think that a lot have taken a nap at some point and time in a car, but let’s analyze this use case a bit: I leave him/her take a nap in the car and lock the car and leave (meaning for more than 10-15 min) when she/he wakes up and has to leave who will lock the car ? What do I get now, an open car …
If you leave someone in the car you leave them the keys for the vehicle …
They can press the interior lock button and close the door on their way out. Locked car.
I was not aware of this. Seems like a totally useless yet potentially dangerous feature. How does it even exist in today’s lawyered-up world?
Isn’t this like a major flaw in Teslas? In the Model X/3 the emergency release is behind a speaker in a completely unmarked cable. Which being a vehicle that happens to have a lot of lithium onboard, directly below your feet. Separated by a notoriously thin firewall. So, in a case of fire, the car loses power. Door deadlocks and you have about 15 seconds to find an unmarked cable stuffed into the door. And this has maybe resulted in the death of around 40-60 people. When the humble Ford Pinto only killed 27 before it met the electric chair.
I think that issue is adjacent but not identical. At least those have emergency releases. You can (theoretically) fix that situation once you’re in it.
This type of lock really sounds like if there’s no glassbreaker in the car, you’re hosed.
Ignore
40-60?! Really?
That’s what I’ve heard. It gets a little dicey in report after because why the car was one fire. Often times via unexpected rapid impact. And with lithium burning so hot, there’s not a lot left to examine to see what was actually the final nail in coffin. Victoria Scott from Driveone mentioned the figure on a podcast, so I did some googling. There is that example from Elaine Cho’s sister in her Cybertruck getting submerged in a Texas pond and no one being able to open the door. Same core problem, different ending.
Chao drove a model X.
Nope… not a flaw in Teslas since they actually DO have the emergency release. It’s the crap that some legacy OEMs make that are the problem.
But nice try at trying to spread some anti-Tesla FUD.
I mean, having an emergency release that isn’t intuitive has the same end result as not having one at all. I don’t expect my passengers to have to read the manual to understand how to exit in an emergency.
It’s a different (severe) base problem with the same end result (being trapped).
“I mean, having an emergency release that isn’t intuitive has the same end result as not having one at all”
I wouldn’t say it’s the same. In a Tesla, there is a decent chance someone can find the manual release. In the other vehicles, there is exactly Zero chance since you can’t use what isn’t there.
Another case of RTFM… I would like a stat on percentage of people that read it when getting a new car to them, has to be like 0.000001%…
I don’t expect a car to have a possibility of killing me (or somebody) this way.
The test drive I got for my 2012 Prius v before buying was all I needed. The only feature that confused me was its hill-start assist that activates when I hold the brake pedal down all the way. I had to find that in the manual, but everything else behaves…like I expect a car to.
I got trapped by a Prius once. At a sketchy convenience store in an unfamiliar city with no cell phone, and only 25 minutes before my cousin’s wedding. I had stopped for a drink, but couldn’t get the car started to get to the ceremony. I RTFM, self-administered a dope-slap, pressed the brake, and was on my merry way.
my cars were from the 80s at that point: I had no idea about the brake pedal thing
My Prius was also my first push-button start vehicle; fortunately the test drive guy was courteous enough to ask if I’d driven push-button start before, and explained that to me.
I learned to drive on all manual cars. The first time I got in an automatic I was confused how you start it without being able to push in the clutch. 🙂
That’s a stupid and pointless feature, but I also can’t imagine how a 14 year old would be able to be trapped in a vehicle to the point of dying from exposure. Car windows aren’t THAT resistant to being shattered especially in a full adrenaline charged panic.
They probably freaked out a bit, and then didn’t want to cause damage so decided to just sit and wait, and nodded off again and then overheated.
Are.you kidding? Automotive windows are famously difficult to smash without tools
Case in point:
CCTV: man throws brick at car window, knocks himself out – video | UK news | The Guardian
They are fairly resistant to it for sure, but like any glass a focused hit from something like the metal on a headrest would do it. Or laying on their back and pushing with their feet. To be fair though, I don’t know the physical state of the 14 year old and I am also assuming they weren’t already suffering from heat exhaustion so could very well have been too much. I think the theory’s about them just becoming unresponsive while napping are the most likely.
If the car sealed well and she was napping, she may have become hypoxic and never woken up.
I think this is the most likely scenario
My thought as well: lay on your back in the back seat and slam both heels at the middle of the window (side window, not rear glass)
That’s what I was picturing as well. I think the most likely theory of them being asleep and becoming unresponsive is the most likely scenario.
Yes, they are. No way a 14 years old Can break them whithout a tool
My cars already have plenty of ways of killing me at their disposal but this just seems unsportsmanlike.
To the contrary, millions of people kill their cars with nary a scratch to themselves. Maybe this is just a case where the car makes the odds a bit more even.
I bet some engineer who wanted a way to ‘accidently’ off their spouse designed this. There is no other reason to be able trap someone in a car. Disabling the horn is just diabolical.
The “thieves won’t be able to open the door after they smash a window” is the lamest justification. How would a thief even know deadlock mode is activated.
The fact that multiple different companies have the same stupid feature is insane.
This has episode of Dateline all over it. Surprised we haven’t seen it yet.
Yeah, like….the thieves who stole the subwoofers out of my van could’ve still gotten them out through a window if the doors didn’t open. Would’ve taken longer, sure, but not insurmountable.
The disabled horn is really insidious. Why would you do that? So the thief can’t alert bystanders to their nefarious deeds? It’s a mistake to have this feature at all, but disabling the horn is downright criminal.
Sounds like something Murder Clown would be interested in?
But seriously? This is a thing? My alarm/security from the factory does some weird crap that I still have not figured out. But I don’t think it’s intent on killing me, yet.
And I can sure imagine seeing these used by those with ill intentions to “facilitate” some fatal auto accidents.
In a friend’s ’18 Camry and my parents’ 2010 Ford Flex, I had this same situation play out twice…I’m sitting in the car, and the driver goes to pick up something at a shop quick, and locks it while they’re gone. It’s not sweltering, but it’s enough I decide to crack a door. Alarm starts going off.
Absolutely infuriating. There’s no broken windows; what is it freaking out about?
The irony to me is that my owners manual is over 300 pages, read them several times. There are not explanations for the factory alarm system.
Thank God that my horn only cheeps when it speaks. Not sure if I have just been lucky, but the alarm part has never gone nuts, yet.
The factory alarm often has a separate manual…
That’s how it should work. I watched a security guy break into a car someone had locked their keys in by sticking a long rod through the window seal and pressing the unlock button. That’s why the alarm goes off if the doors are opened from the inside when the car is supposed to be locked. Annoying, sure, but ultimately much more sensible than locking the doors completely.
OMG this is the most motherfucking stupid thing I’ve ever heard. What kind of criminal reasons, “Oh, well, this car is deadlocked, so I won’t smash the window because I’m too lazy to climb or reach in to grab the valuables”.
None, EVER! The manufacturers are killing people by solving a problem that doesn’t even exist.
Some of these brainiac engineers need to get out from behind the desk once in a while and take a look at what the real world looks like.
The one situation I can think of is if you have some huge subwoofer setup, or other really big piece of equipment to protect, where the only window it could fit through is the windshield. But that’s so narrow an application that it should not be a normal feature at all.
In Europe, it is quite common to belt a Stradivarius cello in the passenger seat.
Does that allow you to use carpool lanes?
As long as you put a wig and googly eyes on the cello case.
This is common in Europe, it’s not for protecting against theft from inside the vehicle, it’s to make it harder to steal the car.
How does disabling the door handles make the car harder to steal? Break window, climb in, do whatever USB or hot-wiring or whatever, and drive off.
No real thief is going to be stopped by this. Joyriders, maybe.
Depends on how hard it is to disable later. Makes the whole operation significantly more annoying though. I believe most of them also disable most of the electrical system hence the lack of horn. Requires climbing in through a broken window, bypassing the immobilizer and whatever other lockouts in a cramped space(much harder to work under the steering wheel without the door open). Then once you’ve got the vehicle somewhere else there’s more work to do.
All security is based on making things harder, not impossible.
Like any lock, its true purpose is to be more of a hassle to break than the other guy’s lock. It doesn’t prevent theft in the way you mean. It makes the theft of another vehicle more convenient.
No need to outrun the bear. Just outrun your friend.
As a North American who always hits the lock twice so it beeps and I know it locks this would worry me. Not that I’ve ever left my kids in the car but I could see it happening by accident.
My wife’s subaru sets off the alarm if you unlock the door with the key which is pretty annoying, but at least it stops when you start the car. Super annoying when the battery dies or you can’t find the fob.
Same case with my old VW when the button died and I had to use the key to unlock the door. It got really annoying quick.
Wait, the alarm just starts going off if you unlock the door with the physical key? How does that make any sense? What’s the theory behind that one?
In 5 years I’ve had to replace my Prius v fob batteries 2 or 3 times. Stinks, but at least I know the physical key always works as a backup if I need it.
Yes. It was great leaving early in the morning to the office and not wanting to wake the neighbourhood.
Yeah, it is weird. A couple of weeks ago I misplaced the key with the charged fob. My wife called me in a panic when the alarm went off after unlocking with the key. Yes, I got batteries on my way home.
yes, OEM anti theft arms with the fob lock button (sometimes you have to hit it twice) and disarms with the unlock button. Using anything mechanical (lock cylinder with key, reaching inside and using interior handles) will set the alarm off. Option is to not use the fob to lock it. It’s that way for the convenience that it’s always armed when you lock the car with the fob, period.
Once upon a time, before wireless remote key (RKE) fobs and engine immobilizers were common, a typical car with a factory-installed alarm system would have a disarm switch attached to the door lock key cylinder. The disarm switch was an electrical input to the alarm or body control module. This way, when you turned the key to unlock the car door, the alarm would disarm and you could then open the door without tripping the alarm. There were two issues with this strategy: the switch cost money to install at the factory, and the switch was a security vulnerability. Thieves knew that they could pry the door handle and/or key cylinder out in order to access and turn the switch, thereby disarming the alarm. Once RKE fobs and engine immobilizer systems became common, the disarm switch was often deemed unnecessary and so it was removed to save build cost AND enhance security. The downside is that IF you unlock the car with the key, the alarm will trip when the door is opened. However, as soon as you insert the proper key into the ignition and turn it, the immobilizer system will recognize the key and the alarm will be shut off. It’s only an inconvenience if your RKE battery goes dead. The immobilizer key function does not rely on the RKE battery, so you can still drive the car (and disable the alarm) even with a dead battery in the fob.
The idea for that is simple: if someone manages to pick the lock, the alarm will go off. The alarm has to be disarmed with the key.
My mom’s Mercedes does the same thing. 20 year old fobs have spotty reliability, so quite often she’d lock with the fob, it’d stop working, unlock with the key, then it’s a race to get the key into the ignition before the alarm gives you a headache.
I got stuck at work once in high school because of this. We only had one remote for our car, and my Mom had it. She stopped by to get something out of the car one day and locked it with the remote. Turns out if the car was locked remotely and you unlock it with the key, it sets off the alarm and immobilizes the car for 45 minutes or something like that. For some reason I was the last to leave and didn’t have a key to get back in and use the phone either.
What could the rationale possibly be for disabling the horn? If somebody’s robbing your car, wouldn’t you want them to get scared away by accidentally making a loud noise? Ether way, great idea – sure, some kids might die horrible deaths, but filling out insurance paperwork is a huge pain. Best to be on the safe side.
Yeah the whole thing seems plausible until you get to that key bit.
However, I think it has more to do with the way it disables the locks, which may have been achieved by cutting power to everything but the alarm?
Holy crap. I’ll bet my ’98 540i has this. DO NOT WANT. Who could have thought this is a good idea? Lewin, thank you for posting this article.
When the C6 Corvette came out with the push button door latches, it didn’t take long for a guy and his dog to get stuck inside one with a dead battery and both die from the heat. To bad he didn’t read the owners manual and learn where the emergency pull is.
Better to know now right?
It was so weird people almost didn’t believe me when I first brought it up
I had no idea. I always assumed a double pull will always open the doors. I’m kind of astonished.
Two of the doors in my E30 got stuck like that and remained that way when I sold it. I believe back then they called it “double locking”.
My e46 vert does this, and I like it. I’ve always heard it called double locking.
No problem! I just continue to not lock my (frameless door glass targa top) cars at all.
An ex had a Monte Carlo SS that got broken into twice, first time causing more damage than the stereo was worth. Second break in—where nothing of note was apparently stolen IIRC—they damaged the door lock and skin to get in. Much swearing on my part demanding from the universe to know why the chucklef’cks didn’t just pull the door glass away from the weatherstripping and reach in with a wire or probably even a stick they could have found lying nearby and pop the damn lock plunger.
That was a small “really?” moment when the subs were stolen from my van…they (understandably) broke the driver window to unlock it, but they could’ve just busted the rear window…there’s an unlock button on the back door. At least then I would’ve been able to drive it to the window place myself because I wouldn’t end up with a buttload of broken glass.