E34 drivers door won't lock

[GeorgeB]

My 1990 518i had the doors opened by a recovery service after the battery went flat. The current position is that the key in the driver's door activates the central locking, and successfully locks the other three doors, but not the drivers door.

On the other three doors the vertical pop-up lock things have free movement but on the drivers door it is stuck jammed in the upright position. The central locking doesn't move it and neither can pressure by hand.

I found the following web page and tried turning the lock to the far right but it hasn't changed anything. Any suggestions, please?

http://www.bmwe34.net/E34main/Trouble/Locked.htm

Regards
George

[dennyg]

Hey George. I have the same problem going on with my newly aquired 535. Three doors will lock except for the front passenger. I just bought the car and drove it up from Florida last week. It may be one of the lowest milage 1989 535 cars out there. Its now 45500........am going to my mechanic to check it out tomorrow and will let you know what he finds out......Denny

[dennyg]

not sure if you received message......going to my mechanic tomorrow for same problem...my 1989 535 has three doors that lock but the front passenger will not........I will let you know what he finds out...

[Alexlind123]

My front passenger door wont lock by itself either. The acuator is fine. I removed the actuator and the lock mechanism and the latch mechanism and soaked them in PB blaster, but it sitll doesnt work. Maybe its the same problem?

[billy]

My 1990 518i had the doors opened by a recovery service after the battery went flat.

why not just use the key...as described in the owners manual

are you sure they havent damaged it when the recovery folk 'broke in'?

[dennyg]

My front passenger door wont lock by itself either. The acuator is fine. I removed the actuator and the lock mechanism and the latch mechanism and soaked them in PB blaster, but it sitll doesnt work. Maybe its the same problem?

My mechanic was reluctant to work on car said it was an actuator. He didn't even take door panel off. I had same problem as you. I took off door panel used key and tried to move mechanism by hand. At first actuator stopped working after a few tries like it was out of battery power. When I started the car everything worked fine. I thought I fixed problem sprayed contact cleaner in the area of actuator and put panel back on. Now my driver door wont lock and the rest of locks cycle up and down staying in down position. So it looks like I made the problem worse. Maybe contact cleaner shorted out the actuator? This is getting frustrating. Anyone help please?

[Zackb911]

My rear driver door does this as well, so bump for the definitive solution

[brosher]

Just so it's clear the synchronization procedure in the link above needs to be done in the PASSENGER door. I just replaced my actuator on the drivers door. Not sure if this was the actual problem or if it was just out of sync. Seems to be working good now though. You can get a new actuator for $60 from autohausaz.com.

It's not that bad to replace the actuator. On my car the door panel clips all needed to be reglued so that took the majority of the time.