It says in my manual that you can program the door locks to unlock when you put the car into park, well I have tried to do this with no luck. The doors will only unlock when the car is turned off. The woman I work for has an 02 Regal which will unlock the doors when put in park. SO in later years this works, is this an error in the manual or am I doing something wrong?!

Assuming the manual is the correct one for your car, then you should be able to do it if it says you can. Read through the procedure very carefully, it can be easy to overlook or misunderstand just one step in the procedure and mess up the whole thing.

I understand and I have gone through it several times, is there anyone else with a 97 that has the door locks that unlock when put in park? I'll have to check and see everything is in order

Dunno if this helps, but my wifes 96 Olds unlocks when put into park. I can check her manual when I get home to see if there is some programming in there.

Ok i did not think this would be that difficult to figure out, but maybe I'm slow. In my manual it says programmable power door locks (option) How do I know if i have this option. Because my car only will unlock the doors when i turn the car off. And under the programmable door lock section it says cars are delivered with option 3 which is all doors unlock when car is put in park, but my car does not do this. I have tried to program it several times by using both the keyless entry and the shifting through gears way, with no luck. Can someone shed some light on this.

Yeah I tried this on my 98 and I went through all 3 modes and I couldn't get any of them to work when I put it in park. Maybe someone can help because I hate having to unlock the doors every time i get out of the car and leave it running.

Hopefully this helps.

My 97 SSEi.. I wanted to dump the autolock and went into the programming as the manual says. Did this, did that and never seemed to be on the right thing.

When you are going through and pressing the button...at one point you get no response from the system. Count that as one of the modes, no response is actually a response for the don't lock when put in gear mode.

I'm thinking you are merely on the wrong mode/program like I was.

After sitting there for 25 minutes going through this..I realized the button on the remote was working every single push.

I'll chime in too. I read and went through this process for nearly two months before I finally figured it out. It is neither easy nor intuative. :?

In rereading my owners manual, I believe that any of the options (0-3), will only allow the doors (as described in 0-3) to lock/unlock with the ignition OFF. The "programmable" portion of this feature only allows you to select which doors lock and unlock when shifting out of and into "PARK" AND turning the ignition to "OFF". A selection for automatic "unlock", with ignition in anything but OFF, is not one of the programmable options. I will double check my FSM tonight to confirm this.

On all three of my leSabres the doors have been set to unlock when car is put into park.
I recall going through the procedure on my 93 or 98 to change the settings and then returned it to the factory choice to unlock all doors instead of driver'* door only when placed in park.

I'm going to have to go read the manual. I also have the factory service manual for 98. The owners manual says the car locks when taken out of park and unlocks when put ino park IF you don't have remote keyless entry (key fobs).

If you have key fobs
0 No automatic
1 All doors lock when taken out of park. No auto unlock.
2 All doors lock hen taken out of park and only driver'* door unlocks when returned to park.
3 all doors lock when taken out of park and all doors unlock when put into park.

Cars delivered with #3 set.

1 Close all doors and keep everything closed. Turn on ignition.
2 Press and hold LOCK on the driver'* power door lock through step 4
3Press the lock button on the remote keyless entry. Locks stay in current mode
4 Press LOCK button on remote transmitter again. and the mode will advance one. The locks on doors will cycle according to the mode the transmitter is in. When it hits 0 mode there will be no feedback.
5. Release the power doo rlock switch. The automatic settings remain in the most recent mode selected.

Note that the door cannot be opened through the procedure-all doors remain closed. Note that the door lock button remains pressed throughout setting modes in step #4.

Hope this helps with the Bonneville.