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I just read this today - don't know how true it is. Supposedly, if you have a headrest in your car, it's detachable and you can use the metal under that to break the windows.
Well it's not like a lot of members here are going to be owning one of these weird Cadies with no interior door handles, a Cadillac forum would be a much better place for this poll. I truly find it hard to believe though that a person would own and drive a vehicle like this without ever questioning themselves how the door opens without the fob, and more importantly how it opens if the battery has run down. All I can say is I hope he and his shyster lawyers don't get a dime, his stupidity is far more the problem than the design - which btw, would only appeal to the laziest of people.
You know - this is America. The land of frivolous lawsuits. He probably will get big $$$.
I just read this today - don't know how true it is. Supposedly, if you have a headrest in your car, it's detachable and you can use the metal under that to break the windows.
I read the whole thread. I don 't see that anyone even mentioned what you posted about BMW. So it looks like BMW and GM are the 2 that people get locked in to. I googled Mazda CX5 emergency door unlock latch, only got results for the back hatch not the doors so I assume the lock button still works when the battery is dead like on my Mazda Tribute.
First off, I don't think Onstar magically works somehow without power, and I'm pretty sure it does NOT activate in emergencies if you don't have an active account. I just did some quick googling, and I couldn't find anything that indicated that it would.
You sound like someone who probably would have been in just as much trouble as this guy. I can imagine you pushing that Onstar button over and over again for 14 hours even though there's no electricity.
Good luck though.
Yes. I suppose it might not work without power. If it's completely out. Also, being in the garage might block the signal.
But as an ex-customer of Onstar, I know they DO respond to emergency calls even if you do not purchase a subscription.
And like I said, this did happen to me, and I was out in 2 seconds (only saying this again bc of your weird comment). When it happened to me, there was obviously enough power to open the door from the outside...then I got in. The dash lit up (still some power!) but the car would not start. So I tried to get out, but the door would not open. I did not have to call Onstar bc I knew where the lever was, but I bet the button would have worked at least right then.
This guy was not in the trunk so a trunk release lever is of no help to him. I suppose it might have helped release some heat from the car to open the trunk, but the release lever inside the car is usually electronic.
I have a button on the dash of my truck. It says "E Off" or something like that. I wondered what it did but assumed it was related to an electronic parking brake (E brake). That made no sense because I have a mechanical pedal for a parking brake too, but since I never use the parking brake I did not worry about that button. After a few years, I leafed through the manual looking for what the button did. I could not find it in the time it took me to lose interest in leafing through the poorly written, confusing and boring manual. A few years later, I was replacing the rear brakes and wanted to make sure the parking brake was released. I finally looked that button up on the internet. Turns out it turns off the overdrive gear for towing or something like that. Something I have no use for. However the point is, I am pretty much an average person. I have more knowledge about cars than 95% of people (I know who to rebuild an engine, or replace a transmission, how to diagnose problems of all sorts). I had my tuck for about 5 years before I learned what the button I did not need was for. It is not unusual for average people to have no idea what a particular button or lever in their car does, or even to not know it is there at all. Especially in today absurdly complicated cars. We had another car that we bought without a manual. The hood release handle was hidden in an unusual place. It took an hour to find it, and I only found it by tracing the cable, finding where it penetrated the firewall and following it to the lever. Not sure why google did not give us the answer. Maybe there just was nothing on google about that car.
It is an odd psychological phenomenon that some people always seem to explain why some catastrophe could never happen to them because they are smarter, or better people than the victim. I see this in all kinds of situations. There are a lot of people who are like this. Always blame the victim for being stupid or careless and proudly proclaim this would never happen to them. I wonder what such people do or say when these types of things do happen to them? Especially if it happens because they did something that is unusually stupid or careless.
It is not difficult to accept the proposition that every car should have an obvious and clear means of getting out if it in an emergency. Why they tucked that lever down out of sight and made it so unobtrusive is not clear. They certainly will not make cars like this anymore. In fact, I am pretty sure they already stopped. Other people have been trapped in them. I wonder if they paid settlements over this in the past.
This is not something GM wants to have stay in the medias focus. They will quietly settle this with an NDA. The damage this is doing to their reputation is reversing millions of dollars of marketing expenses. The sooner this is forgotten the better.
This guy will not get rich off of this. He has no actual damages. Being trapped in a car is inconvenient and scary, but you do not get money for being scared unless you have actual damages. He may have some medical expenses might need to repair the car. I would bet this settles for less than $100,000. Likely less than $50,000. However we will never know. It will just quietly go away and be forgotten when the next social media sensation pops up .
Some people have no empathy or humility. They think nothing bad can happen to them, therefore it must be the victim's fault.
My own character is really no better... I was much the same well into my 30's. Until major health problems came outta nowhere... hit me like a ton of bricks and *could* have killed or permanently disabled me had my circumstances been less fortunate.
I'm pretty well recovered now, but I have a better understanding of just how fragile we humans are. And how fleeting our strength and abilities really are. You can be strong and capable your whole life... and that can be *gone* over night. In time, that'll be true for every one of us.
The lever was clear to see every time you enter the car. It's not GM's fault the guy is Mr Oblivious.
However, since this is a potentially unsafe feature with no purpose other than to make the owner feel the teensiest bit more pampered, maybe a slap to the face lawsuit is in order. Not because the guy or his shyster lawyers deserve anything but just a little penalty for putting such a stupid idea in their vehicles.
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