Is this supposed to happen?

New Hampshire

By any chance have you locked your doors via the remote while the trunk or hood were open?

That's it! If the doors are not locked the light doesn't flash. With the doors locked it does flash. What would be the purpose of this? (The doors can be locked using the switch on the door to do this also).

---MIKE---

The flashing of the lights is tied to the alarm engaging, not the doors locking. Normally the alarm engages when you lock the doors from the remote, but it can't do that (for obvious reasons) when the hood or trunk is open. So instead, it waits patently for all the car's openings to be secured, and engages the alarm at that time.

(Now of course, on my Elantra, the alarm doesn't go off when the trunk is opened, so I'm not quite sure why it bothers to wait for the trunk to be closed.

Thanks Matthew. I wasn't aware that my car was equipped with the alarm system (I bought it used with 11300 miles. It had been a rental car). Apparently it does have the alarm system.

---MIKE---

This may have been a change made with the 2007 redesign. I know 2001 to 2006 do not monitor the trunk for alarm purposes.

On my 2009 Sonata

open trunk get out of car and shut doors lock car with key fob close trunk tail lights flash (could not see if parking lights flashed also but suspect they did)

Larry

I'm not sure if it was a misunderstanding at all, but the lights also wait until I close my trunk before flashing, so it is being monitored. It's just that the monitor is only used to engage the alarm, not to trigger it. That's what baffles me.