I am still having problems with my electronic door locks, both when I use the key or use the door piece.

When I lock or unlock the car, I can hear a very small click (as if it is attempting), but the doors fail to lock or unlock. I seems like there is a loose terminal or bad relay somewhere. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. It goes in spurts.
In the cases where it does not work, I have to walk around to the passenger side, unlock the door, them climb over the seats to unlock the driver's door. This gets VERY embarrassing when you have people from work with you...

I have checked everything that I can think of in the fuse/relay area under the glove department box (on the passenger side foot well). I cannot find the exact relay or connection that operates this. I have looked through the manuals, but I still cannot find anything.

Please remember that I have the pre-USA version (which typically has less electrical problems), and I do not have any relays under the front seats or in the center console (arm rest) area.

I am suspecting a loose wire/terminal or bad relay somewhere. Has anyone had this problem and fixed it? Does anyone know if the circuit is in a series going from door to door to door? Can a single door's connection be causing all of this?

Thanks in advance for your help...

I think that I have found the problem. It looks like someone has spliced into the door lock's wires. I just attempted to "crimp them down" a little further, and it seems to be working (at least while I was testing it). I cannot tell if it was done by the factory, Europa, or by the people who installed the secondary alarm.

I'm personally glad that it's a wire rather than one of the expensive modules. If it reoccurs, I will take apart the wire splice and solder them together.

(Door Locks.jpg)

Door Locks.jpg (102KB - 4 downloads)

thanks for the Picture. I am just in the middle of converting the stupid Infrared Unit into a radio controlled one...

Klaus

That is nearly identical to what I had. Inside of the door lock control module, there are two solenoids that connect to the Blue and White wires. These solenoids reverse the circuit to lock and unlock the doors.

Blue (+) / White (-) = Lock Doors
Blue (-) / White (+) = Unlock Doors

When the module is not active, both wire are ground: Blue (-) & White (-)

In my case, when you unlocked the door, the second solenoid did not switch properly to the negative(-), they were actually both positive(+). On top of that, one of the two positive wires had a slightly different resistance (or something). This caused the sound I heard going to the actual doors, but it did not provide enough power to actually unlock the doors.

When I took apart the module, I found that one of the solders going to the solenoid was slightly burnt and not making the proper connection. I figure this may have been caused by switching the locks from lock > unlock > lock too quickly. When the module is given the signal to lock or unlock, it creates this circuit for approx. one second, then switches both wires to negative(-) as I mentioned above. If the module is currently locking the doors, and then given the command to unlock the doors, it has to reverse the polarity on each of the solenoids. I'm guessing that this switch of polarity while it still has the circuit open can short circuit and melt the solder on the board.

If you have a screwdriver (to gain access to the module) and a 12 V test light, I can walk you through which component is causing you the problems. If you are lucky, you can solve the problem yourself... 

A0038203242 - Right Front Door / Rear Door
A0038204910 - Left Door

86230GE - 6/6/2007 11:12 AM What are these part #'s for? The door lock modules? But Steve said that only the drivers side door is the problem?... Now, I'm a little c nfused!!

Since I had the EPC page open, I listed all of the numbers...

I figured it's better to have all of them rather than not.