Door Actuator Problem?

[clhorton]

I had posted on this a while back and am just now getting the time to try to diagnose why more doors do not lock from the inside on any of the doors. The central locking does not engage at all from the inside of the vehicle. The key will activate the central locking, but it does do the normal double lock when unlocking or locking the door sometimes. I remember you guys mentioning the door actuators causing none of the locks to work from the inside. I have checked fuses and all are good. What othe ideas do you guys have. Is there a way for me to test my door actuators? Thanks in advance

[wingman]

Without trying to hijack your thread, how has your money scheme(scam) worked? Any takers? Again, sorry about the hijack.

[clhorton]

Haha didn't work very well. It flew like a school bus.

[Javier]

Javier

[Mitch90535im]

My door lock actuator for the left rear door actually froze to the point that the lock cannot be operated even manually. I have a replacement that someone from this board sold me from a parts car, but I haven't had a chance to replace it yet. I have been dreading taking the door panel off again because the first time the plastic was so brittle that I broke several of the spots where the fastners hold the door panel to the door frame. My original symptons where that I would single lock the doors with the key then they would quickly unlock. When I locked with the key a 2nd time the locks would stay down.

Several folks suggested that the problem might be an electrical short within the trunk wiring but I believe this left-rear is the culprit. I just might tackle that this weekend, but the weather is so nice today I'm itching to do a little fly fishing for wild rainbows.

[clhorton]

Yeah I checked the under seat fuses.

[Kalevera]

Corey, I don't understand -- will they manually lock at all four doors? Two things can happen -- one physical, one electrical. Mitch is talking about a somewhat typical physical problem (although it's not that scary to remove door panels, and if the black clip fastener holders pop off of the fiberboard, they can be reglued -- just be sure to use a broad flat head screwdriver to minimize that from happening).

If it's an electrical problem (and the doors can still be manually locked): I'll wager that the lock actuators, at least the driver's side, was replaced at some point with an incompatible unit. I've noticed that there seem to be differences between E32 and E34 submarine style actuators (regardless of what ETK says), and I'm nearly certain that there are differences between the driver actuator and all others. Proper operation is being able to lock all doors by the driver's door pin. With a non-driver's/non E34 actuator, that function doesn't work. Again, just a hypothesis of mine, unfounded in anything I've ever read or seen, but have noticed in the time that I've spent working on these cars.

best, whit

[clhorton]

The pin can be manually pressed to lock on the driver door, but it will not lock any other doors. How is the central locking supposed to function. Ex. If i were to push down the pins on the other 3 doors would each pin lock all the doors

[Paul in NZ]

on my car the drivers door pin operates al doors,the drivers door key operates all doors,the pasengers side key operates all doors,all other pins operate that door only

[joshua43214]

This is my memory of how it works, someone please correct I'm wrong. When you lock the car with the key at the drivers or passengers door (trunk too?), it(micro switch in lock cylinder) sends a signal to the module. The module then sends a signal to the drivers door lock actuator to lock. The actuator has a feedback circuit that tells the module to lock the other doors. The module then activates the other servos. In this manner, any method of locking the drivers door will lock all the other doors. A quick look at a wiring diagram would verify this, I may be a bit sketchy on a point or two, but I am almost certain that the "lock" all doors signal comes from the actuator not the lock cylinder, so a weak motor can prevent all the doors from locking due to insuficient travel.

when one door locks then unlocks, it is often caused by a weak actuator or a sticky latch preventing full travel.