Got out of car to open garage, car locked itself up with engine running. Had key fob in pocket. Nothing worked from fob. No unlock, open trunk, or sound horn.

 

Im sure someone else will chime in, but the one way I know of, is that the long portion of the door handle is removable.
There is a small gap between the longer section and the shorter pointed section.
Place something small in that gap to remove the handle and underneath/behind the cover will be a traditional key hole for the key.
The key, of course, is encased in the fob.

EDIT:
The short portion I meant. Terribly sorry!

 

Precisely. Then get your battery checked in your FOB.

 

The battery was new. The dealers tell me it is impossible for this to happen.

 

Well, you proved them wrong, didn't you!

Did you get in yet?

MotionMan

 

Laugholff1,

When we experience one of these events and we don't understand what is going on, it sort of makes us suspicious and shatters our confidence in our cars.

First of all, it is normal operation for the car to not respond to door and trunk LOCK and UNLOCK commands from the electronic key when the IGNITION is ON. So, no problems there. If you have some doubts about that, it is easy enough to demonstrate.

The real question is: how did the door get locked? I am still thinking about that but I suspect that it is related to the doorjamb switch on the driver's door. The doorjamb switch is part of the auto-relock-inhibit feature that keeps us for locking our keys in the car and it also makes sure that the mechanical lock is not set when the door is closed with the ignition on.

These cars have had many reports of defective doorjamb switches and I have had a lot to say about that problem, trying to get peoples attention, as it is a very serious safety concern.

You told us that the "sound horn" did not give an indication that the key was removed from the car while the engine was running. The car makes that judgement by checking for the key when the door is opened and if the key is outside the car, the external sounder beeps.

The typical failure mode of the doorjamb switches is that they never sense when the door is open. In other words the car thinks the door is closed, even when it is open.

Thank you for sharing your problem with us. I think that if you check carefully, you will find that the doorjamb switch is bad - replacing the doorjamb switch is easy and inexpensive.

 

Great entry and definitely something to keep in mind.
Excellent!
To the OP:
Did you ever get in your car?
When you get a few moments, please do update us on your situation, thanks.

 

I thought this scenario is impossible? The car would have to verify that someone is actually sitting in the drivers seat before allowing the doors to lock. Defective doorjamb switch or not, if there's no weight on the drivers seat, it shouldn't allow any locking. There's gotta be something else that went screwy.
Did the car display 'No key detected' on the DIS?
Either way, using the physical key to unlock the door should work.

 

I think it is pretty easy to demonstrate that you can lock the doors without any weight on the seats while the ignition is on and that you can't unlock the doors with the wireless key while the ignition is on. Just put the driver's window down, lay the key on the seat, reach through the window and push the START button twice (ignition on), press the lock button on the inside of the driver's door and then take the key outside the car and try to unlock the door. Of course if the door is opened from the inside and the doorjamb switch senses that it is open the locked door is unlocked when the doorjamb switch senses that the door is closed. If the doorjamb switch is defective then the car thinks the door is always closed. I have already explained that it is easy to lock the wireless key in the car, if the doorjamb switch is defective, because the auto-relock is not inhibited

 

I think it is a design flaw than a keyless start car like Lexus will let the engine run with no key inside the car. I have left the engine running in both my BMW 750 and the current LS, having walked out, locked the car. The doors did open with the door handle touch.

I think people have died in their homes because their cars were still running in the garage, due to CO poisoning.

 

I called a local dealer to find out how to unlock the door with the fob key. I didn't know there was a key hole behind the door handle on the outside. I'll ask the dealer to check the doorjamb switch.

 

Thanks for checking back in with an update, however, im still curious to know how you got into your car that day.
I guess more specifically, did you end up removing the chrome handle to get to the key hole, or use another method?
Secondly, have you tried the troubleshooting process that jmcraney wrote above for a verification of a defective doorjamb?

 

HMM.
I dropped off my son at a local AAA office to pay our car insurance. I then parked the car approximate 50 feet away and turned off the engine. After about a minute the car door locked while I'm inside the car. Weird.

 

Thank you, jmcraney, for a great explanation.

 

The owners manual is loaded with useful information.