Deadlocks - how do they work?

Question

My dad's new car has deadlocks. As far as I can tell, all this means is that the lock pips are flush with the door card when the door's locked, and that they're unlocked using the central locking motors via a signal from a microswitch that's triggered when you pull the door handle.

I assume that when you deadlock the car by pressing the plipper twice, all that happens is the microswitches are ignored, so that the doors can't be unlocked by breaking the window and pulling the handle.

Am I right or wrong? If I'm right, it seems like it'd be pretty easy to retrofit to my car when I fit an alarm.

Duncan Wood · Accepted Answer

Yep, unless your cars got a mechanical link from the handle to the lock.

SteveH · Answer

Hmmm, I think you're wrong.With my Passat, there was a definite '2 stage' locking process.One press of the plip deadlocked the doors, a 2nd press of the plipproduced a 'thunk' from the car as it un-deadlocked it.

Mike G · Answer

On mine, it's deadlocked everytime the car is locked, either using the plipper, or the key in the door. All the door buttons go down, but they, and the internal door handles are disconnected, so although the buttons can be lifted and the door handles operated, they no longer allow the doors to open. I think that is basically all that is meant by deadlocking. Mike.

gazzafield · Answer

With older Vauxhalls it just meant that you couldn't open the doors by smashing the window and lifting the lock. You could still operate the drivers door with key if something went wrong with the central locking like the fuse blowing. This would let you into the car but you still couldn't lift the other doors locks.

Deadlocks - how do they work?

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