P38 Central Door Locking

[Tex Gore]

Aye up,

So my 1995 P38 4.6HSE displays odd behaviour in terms of the central locking:

Using the KEY (in the driver's door obviously) everything (including the boot) locks and unlocks, except the nearside (passenger) door

Using the FOB only the rear doors unlock and lock - no drivers, passenger or boot

I had thought that the passenger actuator had gone, and the reason the driver's door opened on the key was that I was manually popping the lock with the key, but that doesn't explain why the boot doesn't work on the fob!

Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance

TG

[David Sparkes]

Is this car Left hand or Right hand drive?

The reason for asking is that there is a difference between the LH and RH front door lock wiring. Specifically the wire in the RH door that triggers the tailgate lock. This difference remains stable and does not change as the steering wheel etc changes sides. Thus using terms like Driver and Passenger doesn't tell the full story unless we know where the steering wheel is.

Cheers.

[Tex Gore]

Is this car Left hand or Right hand drive?

The reason for asking is that there is a difference between the LH and RH front door lock wiring. Specifically the wire in the RH door that triggers the tailgate lock. This difference remains stable and does not change as the steering wheel etc changes sides. Thus using terms like Driver and Passenger doesn't tell the full story unless we know where the steering wheel is.

Cheers.

It's a RHD vehicle - UK Spec

[David Sparkes]

OK.

The boot doesn't unlock on the FOB because the RHF door is not unlocking on the FOB. The RHF door has a microswitch in the lock mechanism which supplies power to the boot lock only when the RHF lock mechanism is in the unlocked state.

Obviously, when you use the key the RHF goes into the unlock state, so the boot lock has power.

Your problem is reduced to "Using the FOB only the rear doors unlock and lock - no drivers, passenger".

I probably knew the detailed answer once, but have forgotten.

Clearly any security stage is working correctly, so we are just looking at signals along wires from the BECM, via the door outstations, to the latches themselves.

I don't have the time to read up the manuals again, so perhaps someone else is motivated to do that, or in some other way suggest a reason why both front doors don't respond to a fob request.

The Manuals are available for the minimal Data / Time cost of downloading the appropriate RAVE CD content from the GREEN LABEL site. (I think that's the right site name). Look in the Tech Archive on this site for a link, or Google. You don't need to buy a RAVE CD off Ebay. In fact, I recommend you don't.

HTH

[Tex Gore]

Thanks David - that's helpful. I'll get the cards off and attempt to diagnose the actuators and outstations, however research suggests that the actuators have failed - a common fault it seems.

Thanks for clearing up the boot mystery.

R.