Have you ever wondered how your automatic car door locks and unlocks with a click of a button? Modern vehicles are equipped with electric door locks that can engage or disengage to secure the doors of your car. Most of these cars are fitted with keyless entry systems, keypad, or conventional key locks. Read on to discover how power door locks work.

Electric door locks in a car enable the driver to simultaneous unlock all the doors by means of flipping a switch or pressing a button. Most vehicles have a control panel on the driver’s side that controls all the locks in the car.

Power door locks consist of a series of electric parts that work in tandem to lock and unlock the door. But since the locks are used thousands of times during the life of the vehicle, the locks require regular service. Nevertheless, this mechanism is designed to last for a long time. In modern vehicles, there are four to five different ways in which the door is locked and unlocked. This depends on the multiple signals that are sent to the car in the form of:

• A physical key

• Lock/unlock button inside the vehicle

• Combination keypad on the outside of the vehicle

• Pulling up the lock knob inside the vehicle

• Keyless entry remote

• Control centre signal

Door locking and unlocking

In some vehicles, the lock/unlock buttons transfers power to the actuators which then unlocks the doors.  But in the more advanced electronic locks, the body controller dictates the locking and unlocking operation. The body controller is considered as the control unit is in charge of different electrical functions in the vehicle. This controller reads and implements electrical signals coming either from radio frequency, radio transmitter, digital code, or key fob.

Inside the car door

Normally, a power door lock actuator is located below the door latch. A connecting rod attaches the actuator to the latch and another one from the latch to the manual knob that you use to unlock the door from inside the car. This allows the manual knob to work in conjunction with the actuator.

Inside the actuator are a tiny motor and a series of gears. The gears convert the rotation from the motor into linear motion. This motion locks and unlocks the door accordingly. To prevent this process from happening in reverse, there is a functional centrifugal clutch in the system.

As we have seen above, a typical power door lock in a car has many moving parts. And since many people want the latest car with state-of-the-art features, there is a lot of maintenance needed to keep this system working well.

The different locking methods

Many modern vehicles feature a keyless entry system that is controlled by a specific radio frequency. In this setting, you simply press a button on your key fob to either lock or unlock the doors. In modern cars, this action will unlock the trunk as well. The good thing is that most central locking systems available today will confirm the locking/unlocking with a honk of the horns and flickering of the lights.

In older cars, the locking or unlocking was completed on a keypad on the outside of the door. Car owners would typically add a code on the keypad to unlock the door.

On the other hand, there are other cars whose doors are automatically locked when the shift is moved from the ‘park’ position. This adds security as children are not able to open the door when the car is in motion. Similarly, there are cars that automatically lock the doors at a certain speed.

Why you should go for power door locks

You should go for power door locks because of the following reasons:

• Automatic door locks are convenient to use. When carrying luggage, you do not have to rummage through your bags to find car keys. Instead, you just click a button on the key fob and all the doors on the car will automatically unlock.

• You can never be locked out of your car. Since you have to click a button to lock your car, there is no way you can get locked out of your car without the key fob.

• Increased safety for driver and passengers. Since you can lock all the doors at once, there is increased safety in the car. As we said above, there are cars that automatically lock the doors when they reach a certain speed.

• Saves time. When traveling alone, you can save time by securing all the doors at the same time.

With the above information, we hope that you now understand how power door locks work. They are convenient, easy to use and a necessary accessory in modern vehicles.

Watch the video below to understand how power door lock work