Front door lock - key doesn't do anything?

[sim303]

Hi

As a relatively new owner, there are some things about my vehicle I am not sure about. Once such thing is the front driver's door lock.

When the car is locked and alarmed, the key just turns (both directions) and does nothing. No mechanical action, and no central unlock. I assume this is not normal - it means that the car cannot be opened when the battery is flat (as I found out - luckily I had fitted a dangling charging cable to the inside of the front bumper, so I could give it some juice and unlock using the fob. But that is not going to cut it in the middle of nowhere!)

Could it be that someone changed the barrel? Or simply broken?

Thanks!

 

[al/c]

might be worth taking off the door card and checking that the lock clips are attached.

 

[uHu]

That's not normal, yes. What about the door on the other side?
On the rear door/hatch/liftgate, the key lock is electric and won't work without battery power, but both the fronts are mechanical, and controlling the central locking as well. It will not disarm the alarm tho', so if it's on, it will blast you.

 

[sim303]

I see - thanks for the info. Annoyingly the car is at my parents' now so I can't check until next weekend, but yes it sounds like it is busted

As for the alarm, I take it that if the fob fails it is not possible to start the car with just the key? I get a bit nervous about immobilisers and the alarms failing in the middle of nowhere, with no ability to get moving again!

 

[uHu]

Is it a key like this?
The immobilizer will still be ok even if alarm/doorlock fails. The responder for the immobilizer is inside the key-chip which also controls the central locking, but they are still two separate functions.
If you go to nowhere (norway?), bring a spare key. For the (2 that came with the car) keys without remote buttons, the immobilizer responder is embedded in the key itself.

 

[sim303]

I found the problem....

I removed the door card, and was happy to notice that the vertical linkage from the central locking switch, was not connected at the top, to the lock barrel.

After faffing around trying to reconnect it, I could not get it to connect in any sane way. I resorted to opening up the other door, and saw that the linkage on that side was about 2 inches shorter, and a different shape!

So it looks like some plum has installed the wrong iteration of the mechanism, at some previous date.

The metal is thick and stiff - I used a dremel to shorten it but it was really hard to form it to the correct bend in the space available, and I could not see for the life of me how to remove the linkage completely, which would have let me shape it precisely.

In the end I sort of got it to fit. It works, but feels pretty rough. Still, it's only for emergency use so I figure I'll put up with it.

I dare say a new mechanism from Mr T is ££££££...

sim