Drivers door lock actuator is sticking - any ideas ?

[Derek A.]

My guess is the acutator is shot. It moves - but the knob only moves a small amount and the door doesn't unlock. Have to do the ghetto move of opening the back door to unlock the front. Anyone have success with a repair that didn;t invovle ripping the door apart or buying a new actuator ?

D.-

[Kalevera]

So it's locked shut and won't unlock? Sounds like you got the bad scenario out of the two possible when the gears strip out (door locked/actuator fused). Mine were fused with the doors unlocked, which was uh....nice.

Once you get the door panel off, you might want to check the alignment of the actuator -- if it's too far away from the door jamb, it will lock but not unlock.

The actuators themselves aren't serviceable. Only a marginally good design with the typical mitsuba toy R/C car motors and a flimsy microswitch brush.

best, whit

[Bellicose Right Winger]

Disconnect the battery and manually lock/unlock 20-30 times. This will exercise the lock mechanism, linkages and actuator.

Paul Shovestul


My guess is the acutator is shot. It moves - but the knob only moves a small amount and the door doesn't unlock. Have to do the ghetto move of opening the back door to unlock the front. Anyone have success with a repair that didn;t invovle ripping the door apart or buying a new actuator ?

D.-