I'm polishing up the Z2 on my car and get to the lower forward part of the driver's door. The car is already unlocked. As I'm polishing that part of the car, the solenoids to unlock the doors fire and the associated marker and corner lights blink. After this began, one wipe would provoke a response. Just like scratching a dog to make it's leg go. LOL! What's going on here? Is it the pressure on the body panels? An induced static charge activating the solenoids? I didn't try it with doors locked to see if it would actually unlock them since by this time I was kind of tired. Guess I'm going to have to experiment, since if this is possible it makes everything in the security system but the Immobilzer irrelevant.

Most cars with central locking have a crash sensor located usually in the region of the driver's door hinge points. It's so that in the event of a crash with the doors locked, they unlock so that emergency services can get inside.

They can be too sensitive sometimes, I've seen cars with the keys locked inside be opened with a pair of wire strippers and a small hammer by placing the stripper handles in the right place and tapping with a hammer to activate the crash sensor. Anyone guess how I got to see this? :-(

You might be right, static build up could be the cause as the sensor is a low voltage device, either that or you are rubbing far too vigorously in an effort to get that ultimate shine!

a white all-cotton towel. (A little Zaino humor?)

seems pretty easy for theives...I wonder if the alarm goes off. Next year OnStar will be alerted!!! Arrrghhh!

A. No digi.
B. Zaino requires a second coat of Z2 to really show on my silver car. I still need to recouperate from my first effort.
C. My car's silver over vanilla/royal. I love my car's aesthetic though it's controversial. April deemed it BLECH! Though I've learned the folly of disagreeing with April, if I can borrow a camera, I'm going to give the car I love every opportunity to show to its best advantage.

Was your keys in your pocket? I had mine open the doors "automatically" when I realized as I was stooping to get to the lower par of the car, something pressed the unlock switch on the remote in my pocket. Just a thought.

I'm sure I had my remote in my pants pocket, and I've actually had it activate when I bent down close to the car. Hmm? Guess I'll have to experiment.

You could get them to check their cars too if you are convincing enough ;-)

The trick of getting in to a car via the crash sensor is a few years old now and I'd be surprised if if works on a modern car unless something is not working correctly. If I remember rightly, it relied on certain electrical circuits being active when the ignition is off so that the sensor is active when you knock it. I'd guess that modern cars aren't stupid enough to leave the crash sensor system active when the ignition is off, the doors are locked and the interior alarm is on...

A lot of those cars that don't ativate the sensors without the ignition on can still be broken into if you know how. Scary to see somebody who knows what they are doing get underneath a locked car and one minute later the ignition is on while the car's still locked, thirty seconds after that the strippers are out and the hammer is applied and the car is open.

The guy who showed me this reckons that any car with central locking and no immobiliser can be stolen in under 5 minutes if you know where it's weaknesses are. No, he wasn't a car thief, he was a roadside assistance engineer and he lets a lot of folk back into cars they've locked themselves out of!