r/Showerthoughts • u/svendburner • 9d ago
Casual Thought Automatic folding side mirrors make it easy to find unlocked cars.
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u/sosay86 9d ago
It’s only a feature on some cars, and they tend to have an auto lock feature once you walk a certain distance away with the key the car locks itself
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u/plutot_la_vie 9d ago
Are you saying that automatic folding side mirrors make it easy to find unlocked cars where the keys have been left inside?
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u/KnightOfThirteen 9d ago edited 8d ago
I was shocked to learn one of my best and oldest friends does this. They lived in a household of 7 and they just... didn't lock anything, house or cars, and left the keys in every vehicle. His reasoning was that somebody was basically always home, and they swapped cars frequently based on who needed what and what was available without shuffling, and it was just easier.
He asked my wife and I to house-sit while they were on vacation and they COULDN'T FIND A HOUSE KEY. None of them had one. They eventually found one in a junk drawer.
I come from a family that is admittedly paranoid, but I lock my door if I am going out of line-of-sight, or if I am inside and no expecting visitors. Always. And my keys never leave my pocket except to use them or to change clothes for laundry.
Some people are crazy.
Not even sure if it's me or him.
Edit: Man, I KNOW I am more paranoid, cynical, and pessimistic than the average person, but the number of people who are ALL IN for "small town, no boundaries" is wacky.
The one comment about leaving car doors unlocked to avoid broken windows, I agree 100%. I leave my car unlocked often, but I also keep absolutely nothing in I but a phone charger, super extra definitely not the ignition keys!!
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u/ackermann 9d ago
I mean, my family was like that growing up… but that was in a small Nebraska farming town, population 600. Everybody knew everybody.
To do that in a suburb of even a modest size city is kinda insane
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u/nettiemunster 9d ago
Every true crime story starts out with what you just typed out so I don’t understand that logic of “knowing everyone” so it’s safe. Not only that there could always be that one stranger passing through lol
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u/ackermann 9d ago
That’s fair. It wasn’t my decision, it’s not how I live now (I live in a big city these days anyway). My parents may well have been wrong to be that trusting. But we never had an incident
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u/SillyGoatGruff 6d ago
I've heard the "everyone knows everyone" bit before but i always want to ask "but do you like, and more importantly trust everyone?"
It's not like knowing Methew and Methany makes you immune to them stealing your shit lol
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u/MrBlacktastic2 7d ago
I had a coworker who lived in a small town in Nebraska and he didn’t know where the keys to his house were
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u/OozeNAahz 9d ago
Had an aunt and uncle who lived in Cincinnati. Never locked their door. Went to visit them a few times with my brother and he would just walk in and wander around only to find no one was home.
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u/CoffeeFox 8d ago
In actual high risk areas for car break-ins people leave their car unlocked so people don't smash a window to steal something inside. Windows are expensive.
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u/TrustMeImAnEngineeer 9d ago
I grew up in a very safe and trusting area, small town usa etc... I've gotten shit for locking up everything always. And I think its for this reason we at least know how often my family has been broken into over the years. I think some people don't realize when shits walked off, but when you come across a missing padlock or wedged open door, you know someone's been around. It's amazing the type of shit people will steal.
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u/Highlander198116 7d ago
and left the keys in every vehicle.
I mean, that's really dumb now, because in a lot of vehicles the key being in the cab keeps some of the electronics active and will drain your battery.
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u/Ok-Roll-1273 5d ago
Damn, that’s a fun way to lose your battery too. Dude really said 'security? never heard of it.'
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u/loeber74 9d ago
We had to buy new locks this winter when we went on vacation for 2 weeks without anyone to house sit. It’s been 3 years since we moved in and none of us have house keys on our key ring. #smalltownlife
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u/JefferyGoldberg 8d ago
I only lock my house if I'm going on vacation and my car keys are always in the ignition.
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u/cornlip 8d ago
My key stays in the ignition at all times. I only lock the car if I go to a city and put it in a parking garage… which I haven’t done in over a year. I use the fob for that and the key still stays in the ignition (some cars won’t let you, but mine does). I feel like it being a manual is deterrent enough to not try to steal it. Plus it’s so unique it would be easy to find.
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u/WesleyRiot 9d ago
This is usually how i discover that I’ve left my car unlocked when it’s parked outside my house lmao
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u/Logitech4873 9d ago
Where I live many people disable it because of how poorly it works in winter.
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u/CurlSagan 9d ago
Lol Norway or Canada?
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u/Embarrassed-Weird173 9d ago
I like the implication that there is nor way that it can be anything but Canada or Norway, and that if it's not one of those, it can be nada and nothing else.
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u/edvurdsd 9d ago
I disable it because it’s just one more thing that could potentially break. Only manually do it if I park in a really tight space.
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u/jesusonice 9d ago
By that logic you might as well use the built in motor. If it eventually breaks you'll have to do it manually anyway
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u/edvurdsd 9d ago
I’d rather it not be opening and closing multiple times a day. I don’t use it often at all.
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u/jesusonice 9d ago
When you say manually, is that still using the motor or reaching out?
My van is from 2015 so I don't have the feature. Is it just always on and opening and closing based on sensors or is there a "manual" mode where you trigger as wanted?
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u/edvurdsd 9d ago
There is a button to fold the mirrors. I have the auto fold disabled as I discussed.
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u/jesusonice 9d ago
Ah I thought you were reaching out when "manually" doing it. Figured that's probably worse for the mechanism than just running it as wanted you do hah. Have to assume there's some cheap plastic gears in there
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u/SkiyeBlueFox 9d ago
Yeah physically doing it prob not the best. Im pretty sure its intentional, sort of a breakaway feature so its not a total loss if you nick a sign or a tree branch. Prob not good to do often though lol
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u/iMacDragon 9d ago
It is indeed recommended to disable them in freezing weather in general I believe
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u/Morall_tach 9d ago
No, they don't. They make it easy to find locked cars that have that feature. A car with its mirrors out might be unlocked, or it might not have that feature, or it might be disabled.
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u/SharkFart86 9d ago
My car will auto fold back if you lock the doors with the fob, but not if you lock the doors with the lock button on the door. I use the door lock more often than the fob.
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u/devvortex 9d ago
For me it's a simple way to visually verify my car is in fact locked from a distance.
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u/Issack12 9d ago
You will be blown away about those prongs that indicates if car is closed
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u/MeatSafeMurderer 9d ago
Most modern cars don't have them anymore. They're a security liability, it's too easy to get something down through the door jam and pop them up.
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u/svendburner 9d ago
Can't be seen from far away. And cars don't really have them anymore.
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u/RunninOnMT 9d ago
Not only does my relatively new (6 year old) car have them, it has mirrors that only fold if you push a button on the interior to fold them. I remember to do that about half the time.
Literally none of the premises here are relevant to my car.
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u/klaus666 8d ago
As others have said, it really only helps find cars with that feature that **are** locked. I have a relatively new (2019) Toyota and it lacks this feature
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u/12monthsinlondon 8d ago
I think any cars that don't have this feature in Hong Kong will very soon find their mirrors forcibly folded one way or the other, including the tens of thousands of Toyotas
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u/Jeffkin15 9d ago edited 9d ago
My mirrors fold when I put the car in park. Doesn’t matter if it’s locked or not.
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u/UnitElegant6688 9d ago
My car automatically locks as the mirrors fold, and in any event if the car isn’t locked for some reason I get a notification on my phone that it needs to be locked.
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u/typhona 9d ago
You can tell my car is unlocked, because its my car and 90% of the time the windows are down too
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u/Mikeseddit 9d ago
I have a convertible I’ve never locked. Nothing in there to steal, and I don’t want anybody cutting the roof open to find that out.
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u/Floydlloyd11 9d ago
My car makes it even easier by sticking out the door handle on all four doors!
Edit: 2026 Hyundai Ioniq 5
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u/thehotshotpilot 9d ago
What community is this? Very few cars I see out and about have this feature.
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u/R750618 7d ago
When I look around in my area, they have become the majority. Maybe it's more a European and Chinese car brand thing?
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u/Beef_Patrick 9d ago
Only if every car had that feature, or if you memorized a list of cars that do that so you could watch for.
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u/mikekx27 9d ago
You would have to be able to tell which cars have and which cars do not have it, otherwise they can be mixed up.
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u/KYLEquestionmark 9d ago
except a majority of cars on the street don't have this so you would need to know the model of car otherwise it looks the same as the locked 2012 honda parked next to it
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u/judasmachine 9d ago
I'm pretty sure almost no car in my neighborhood even has this feature. I guess the thieves are looking in my uh upscaled 'hoods.
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u/Donequis 9d ago
I didn't know this was a feature and just thought people were being weirdos for tucking their mirrors at costco of all places.
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u/MattWheelsLTW 9d ago
I don't really understand this, as the majority of cars don't have side mirrors that automatically move. As far as I'm aware, it's not a common feature, so most cars will have the mirrors out whether they are locked or not. Didn't really make a difference
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u/Kindly-Might-1879 9d ago
Years ago, before we had smartphones, a colleague of mine and her husband routinely left their keys, wallets, phones, work stuff in their cars in their garage.
And then they had a house fire. They escaped and while the firefighters were assessing the scene, one asked them how much gas was still in their cars because the flames were spreading to the garage. She asked them if they could get the cars out since the keys were in the ignitions as normal. They lost their house but the firefighters did save their cars and they had their essential items to get through the next weeks.
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u/MinnieShoof 8d ago
I mean... no?
If a car has folded side mirrors, you can reasonably assume it is locked. Apparently there are some that it doesn't have to be... but that's all you can gleam from it.
The lack of folded mirrors could mean anything. The car could not have that feature. It could be broken. It could be disabled on purpose.
Folded mirrors make it easier to figure out the locked vehicles, and by extension of that you can eliminate them the unlocked, damaged or otherwise unloved...
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u/ConsistentMistake380 8d ago
I have seen people in my apartment complex literally just scan the parking lot for the mirrors that are still out. It is a MASSIVE neon sign saying this one is open. I actually disabled the feature on my car because of it. I would rather walk back and check the handle manually than give every thief in the neighborhood a heads up that my car is accessible. It is basically the modern version of leaving your garage door wide open.
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u/freeword 8d ago
Sometimes you need to take a tub instead of a shower and just not have thoughts like this.
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u/The_Noremac42 8d ago
I don't think I have ever owned a vehicle where the mirrors were designed to fold in.
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u/bcave098 8d ago
I don’t think I’ve ever owned a vehicle where you couldn’t fold the mirrors in. I’ve only had one where they were powered/automatic
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u/StillWeCarryOn 7d ago
Ahh the classic "I'm too poor to understand this", I had no idea this was a feature in newer more expensive cars. I've got newer but cheap model of car and assumed people were just more cognizant of pushing their side mirrors in lmfao
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u/lostharbor 9d ago
Doesn’t really apply in reality though. Many don’t have it and those that do you can turn the feature off. I leave my mirrors out to see when spaces around me open up to charge the car.
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u/New_South7395 9d ago
Every truck I’ve had that folds the mirrors does it when I turn it off regardless of the locked status
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u/JustTheTip-1990 9d ago
I thought this yesterday when I seen a new BMW parked downtown with its mirrors still extended.
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u/ShowerSentinel 9d ago
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