New owner: Automatic door locking

Good morning everyone,

I just received my 2019 SL+ Leaf on Wednesday and I am very excited. Of course I have new owner questions!

On my old car, the doors would automatically lock when I started driving. Is there a way to set that up or do I have to go to the dealer?

Likewise, when I got out of the car and walked away, the doors would lock (after a brief interval) and the car would beep. Again, is there some way to set this up? The old car was a 2019 Buick Envision BTW.

Thanks in advance for your help.

LHN said:

Good morning everyone,

I just received my 2019 SL+ Leaf on Wednesday and I am very excited. Of course I have new owner questions!

On my old car, the doors would automatically lock when I started driving. Is there a way to set that up or do I have to go to the dealer?

Likewise, when I got out of the car and walked away, the doors would lock (after a brief interval) and the car would beep. Again, is there some way to set this up? The old car was a 2019 Buick Envision BTW.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Click to expand...

If should do this already once you travel faster than 15 mph. If not, you'll have to look through the dash settings for the "Intelligent Door Lock" menu and play around with the settings to get the ones you want.

There are also more advanced door lock settings available LeafSpy Pro

I found that what I want is called "Walk away locking" and the Leaf does not have this feature, no matter how much I wish it did.

Now my next question: is the key fob for the Leaf a "proximity key"? Apparently this has something to do with the key transmitting signals to the car. If you leave it too close to the car, or in the car, it is constantly transmitting and can drain the 12V battery. Is this true? This would apply to when you are not driving, of course. It would be like leaving your lights on (in the old days) and having your battery go dead.

Thanks for answers.

LHN said:

I found that what I want is called "Walk away locking" and the Leaf does not have this feature, no matter how much I wish it did.

Now my next question: is the key fob for the Leaf a "proximity key"? Apparently this has something to do with the key transmitting signals to the car. If you leave it too close to the car, or in the car, it is constantly transmitting and can drain the 12V battery. Is this true? This would apply to when you are not driving, of course. It would be like leaving your lights on (in the old days) and having your battery go dead.

Thanks for answers.

Click to expand...

Yes I've seen a newer Honda CRV with that "walk-a-way" feature, but not a Leaf. Leaving the FOB near the car when OFF isn't going to be like leaving the headlights on but more like a tiny LED bulb on all the time. Very slow drain but a drain nonetheless and over weeks or days, if your 12v battery already happens to be weak, it could cause your car not to start and require a jump. On our Prius which also has a similar FOB, I used to place my spare fob hidden in the car in a small box lined with several layers of tin foil and also several layers of tin foil wrapped around the FOB, The easiest way to see if you've got it is to hold the box containing the FOB very near the door unlock button area, if you can lock and unlock the car using the outside button, the EMF is getting through. If the outside button doesn't work, you've probably blocked it enough. I found it took many many layers of tin foil to stop the EMF, it's possible something else might work better than tin foil but it was handy. If you were just storing the FOB a few feet from the car just a couple layers of tin foil might do the trick.

https://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=25579#p524003 said:

Check this thread.

Click to expand...

The same procedure is used to enable or disable automatic door locking.

You can enable automatic locking when speed reaches 15 mph as others have already noted. Although the LEAF does not have the automatic locking when walking away feature, you can enable the little button in the exterior door handle to lock/unlock the car without using the buttons on the key fob.

New 2023 Leaf,

I looked high & low when I got it the other day and there is no real options to modify the Auto-Locking.

Disappointing

I love the vehicle so far, but the locking thing is one of 3 things bug a little but can live with.