Member Since: 23 Mar 2014
Location: Kenilworth
Posts: 64
Help! Locking problems after removing door cards
Hi there.
Arrrhhhh!
After my wife made a significant unauthorised bodywork modification to the rear quarter panel... A local and very helpful body guy ( a friend) has done a great repair. However.... now we can’t get the car to lock.
He had the door cards off in order to strip the door handles and this seems to have made a problem somewhere.
So let’s try and give as much detail as possible...
Electronic Lock button on drivers door :
You hear car lock, but all doors immediately unlock.
Locking car with fob:
Locks all doors except drivers door. You see the drivers door physical lock button ‘twitch’ but doesn’t go the full way to lock.
Engaging deadlock with fob:
Very shortly the alarm activates.
IID tool: no reported faults
Rear right door: replaced door latch cable as the clip got damaged. At first this door wouldn’t lock at all, and the lock button was stiff. With lots of wiggling, trying to pull external handle and push lock button at same time, etc etc it now will lock if you use the remote fob, but not lock using the internal button.
Left rear door: this had the door card stripped purely to get a visual on how the latch cable was supposed to attach. At first it wasn’t locking, after some wiggling discovered the handle hadn’t seated properly back to the door, so after a tap it has been working fine.
Front passenger door: not stripped, behaves fine.
Front drivers door: This one got stripped for the door handles too. Now it won’t lock either with internal physical lock button, internal electrical button or fob. The physical button doesn’t ‘feel’ like it is locking / unlocking. I’ve tried wiggling, holding lock button and pulling external handle, locking & unlocking repeatedly with door open and closed etc etc.
No joy.
Any ideas very gratefully received!!!! I’d like my car back.
Trev
2nd Nov 2017 10:46 pm
KiwiD4
Member Since: 17 Aug 2017
Location: Christchurch
Posts: 310
Are any of the door lock buttons stiff to operate? Sounds to me like one of them (possibly the drivers door) is too stiff for the actuator trying to lock it, and therefore it unlocks again.
I've had this on other cars.King of the typo.
MY11 D4 5.0 V8, Bournville, lots of goodies!
Now departed: '85 RR Vogue, '94 D1, '95 D1, '70 SIIA, '97 D1, '04 D2a. All V8, except for the SIIA - but that drank as much petrol anyway!
3rd Nov 2017 12:30 am
Knockinroe
Member Since: 23 Mar 2014
Location: Kenilworth
Posts: 64
Yes, drivers door physical lock button is stiff / doesn’t feel right.
Rear door isn’t stiff, but still doesn’t quite ‘feel’ right.
Any idea what could be causing the stiffness?
Is it possible that the lock mechanism can get ‘out of sync’ with the button or cable? I seem to recall from my old D3 that it’s just a motor in the lock. How does it know it’s position?
3rd Nov 2017 7:10 am
Knockinroe
Member Since: 23 Mar 2014
Location: Kenilworth
Posts: 64
So... in case it helps someone one day...
I went over myself and stripped the doors.
Rear door: Turns out when the body guy rebuilt the door, one of the plastic clips on the lock mechanism was broken, so the latch cable wasn’t correctly seating. With the help of a bit of superglue, the cable now locates in the correct location on the lock.
Front door: The white catch on the end of the latch cable was broken and not correctly locating in the back of the internal door handle. (See photo below) Closer inspection showed that this has previously been repaired (must have been when the car went into LR for the door mirror to be replaced! New one ordered... Hoping with the new cable we’ll be up and running again.
Thanks guys!
3rd Nov 2017 1:43 pm
Knockinroe
Member Since: 23 Mar 2014
Location: Kenilworth
Posts: 64
Yeah.
New cable fitted. All doors locking and unlocking again!
3rd Nov 2017 5:10 pm
KiwiD4
Member Since: 17 Aug 2017
Location: Christchurch
Posts: 310
King of the typo.
MY11 D4 5.0 V8, Bournville, lots of goodies!
Now departed: '85 RR Vogue, '94 D1, '95 D1, '70 SIIA, '97 D1, '04 D2a. All V8, except for the SIIA - but that drank as much petrol anyway!
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A local and very helpful body guy ( a friend) has done a great repair. However.... now we can’t get the car to lock. 
