On a couple of occations, the MINI sitting in my garage left unlocked, I've came out of the house to find the doors locked up. Figured I must have touched the wrong button on the key, but the key never works that far from the car in the parking lot, unless you have the key to your face. Yester day I was in the garage cleaning the windows, top down, keys on the workbench, standing there sipping a little wine, my first glass, and the doors and trunk lock by them selves. Nobody touching anything. Is it the Ghosts of Oxford at work here?

 

I have the magic touch with both of our MINIs in regards to the doors locking. It seems that having the key in my pocket and normal movement around the garage and possibly even in the house causes the lock button on the key fob to get pushed enough to lock the cars. It's funny because sometimes it takes two or three pushes of the button to lock or unlock the car. I had the same regular occurrences of locking happen with my '02 Passat.

 

Don't take this personally, but we used to have a fairly overweight guy working at our office and when he wiggled around in his office chair with his keys in his pants his truck outside in the parking lot would be locking and unlocking itself and the lights would come on occasionally and sometimes the alarm would go off. It was a friggin hoot. Too bad we had to fire him for non-performance.

 

isn't there an automatic locking if the car has been idle (no one opens doors, etc.) after a certain period?

I'm pretty sure, the other day i was washing mine and left it unlocked only to come back and find it locked. I think this is a nice feature in case I forget to lock it while I'm out and about. Just don't ever leave your key in there.

someone can correct me if I'm wrong about this.

 

From 2003 on one of the program options for the MINI is to lock automatically after X number of seconds/minutes. A friend with a 2003 showed me the auto lock feature. It will even lock if the windows are down.

It will not lock automatically if the keys are in ignition.

 

That is a programmable feature which my dealer thankfully did not set to work on my Mini. I prefer for it to be difficult to lock my Mini unless I am outside & using the key but.....

I gotta ghost too. Last Sunday I stood at my front door & unlocked the Mini so I could get something out of it. I set my keys on a flat table. I went outside, pulled my garbage bin up the driveway to the curb, & walked back down to my Mini. Right when I got to the door to open it...CLICK my doors locked Unless Petey the puppy has gotten really crafty & was playing a trick on me, I have a ghost.

 

Not sure about the Mini but My VW Touareg and VW Phaeton have a feature programmed. That if the car is unlocked by the key fob and the door is never opened, The car relocks itself. It is of the thought that the door was inadvertantly unlocked. I need to try it on the Mini.

 

Maybe that's the trick. It doesn't lock itself all the time just every once in a while. Maybe it thinks it's a VW. Naw, Oxford ghosts!