right - nipped up the village earlier to purchase wine and crisps - as you do. parked up on the (dimly lit) high street, flicked the light stalk to "side lights" in anticipation of leaving them on to lessen the chance of agrarian dullards careering up the road and in to the back of the vehicle, and locked the doors with the key fob/handset type thing - off i goes to the shop without incident....

...five minutes later, back i comes, press unlock button - bugger all happens, least of all any unlocking - side lights are still on

after staring blankly at the thing for a few minutes, decide to grasp the nettle, shove key in lock, turn and manage to open the door - alarm goes off, dive in to vehicle, key in ignition, turn and - thank god - alarm stops and it becomes apparent that the immobiliser has not activated

am i to take it from this episode (having read and re-read the handbook, and found nothing of any relevance) that it is impossible to lock a 2001 TD5 ES having left the sidelights on, and then be able to open the bloody thing again without setting off the alarm ?

none of this, by the way, is due to inadequate battery charge - the thing is brand new

How many times did you press the unlock button? Sometimes they get out of sync (like if you pressed it by accident nowhere near the car). If this happens you need to press it a few times to get it sync'd again. Just a thought...

not allowing for any initial inadvertant pressings, just the once as per usual, then probably a dozen or so times from a variety of positions around the vehicle - with increasing levels of panic - before giving up and going for the manual option...

Sounds weird, probably just one of those things... Have you repeated the sidelights thing to test it - I'd be worried if that was anything to do with it!

i'll give it a go over the weekend when i'm safely away from built up areas - any problems, the thing's in for a service on Monday, so it'll get sorted then i suppose

thanks for your input

The same thing happens to me at least once a week.
Get out of the landy press the button, locks up ok. Come back 10 mins later press the button and nothing, even with a new battery! Run round the bloody thing pressing like mad. Then i remember something i saw on top gear. . . . Put the FOB against your head, then press the button. Opend first time, it has also quadroupled the range i can open and lock the landy. Other half thinks i'm mad. But it does work!!!!!!!!!

Good to see someone using their head. Nice one Crusty!

The keyfob to the head is a good trick and works well.

I regularly lock the Disco with the side lights on, never have any bother unlocking again.

the same thing has happened to me but i can get it to work new batterys still no luck do you think newfob or worse
john