My 7 gen steering wheel would lock upon opening door and exiting vehicle. My new 8th gen doesn't do that. Can any of you confirm that your 8th gen Does NOT lock? My dealership is useless as I have tried 4 times to get this question answered. No one knows?

 

Interesting. I read this and said of course it does. All of my cars for the last 20 years have locked the steering wheel when you turn them off. So I just went out and tried my new Platinum. It does not lock the steering wheel.

 

On the 7th gen only the earlier models had the steering lock activation. For example my 7th gen doesn't have that feature and it's a 2012.

 

Thank you for checking. All of my vehicles have also locked. I also didn't realize that they did away with it in the later 7th gen.

 

What benefit/safety does locking the steering wheel when doors are open offer?

 

I thought it was an anti theft feature

 

The steering wheel lock is part of the anti theft features on early 7th gen models. It was discontinued in later models of 7th gen cars because of the high failure rate of the locking feature. When the locking mechanism fails you cannot start the car, because the ignition will not turn on, hence the anti theft feature. It's like trying to start and steal the car without a remote. Too many people were left stranded because of this and if you were our of warranty the cost would be about 900 dollars to replace. I disabled my steering wheel lock in my 09 by pulling the fuse, to prevent a future failure.

 

You have a good memory, Richard66. I had almost forgotten about that situation. I was lucky in that I did not pull the fuse, but did not get stranded in the middle of nowhere. I might be good at Russian Roulette?