central locking

[tonydrac1]

Hi i am a new member, trying to find a manual for my Z3 with little avail.
The car is 1997 and I have upgraded the full exhaust/cat system to stainless and it now has a lovelly throaty rasp sounds great.
lovelly motor!
Can anyone help me with CENTRAL LOCKING?
I can lock the car through the drivers door only with key, this activates boot and passenger door also.
The key fob remote locks only the boot and passenger door only not drivers door.
I am a little confused,

[Brian H]

Welcome Tony,

Sounds like your drivers side lock actuator is not working, you will be able to pick one up fairly cheaply, I am afraid it is off with the door card though to replace it.

BTW, we need some pics of your car, it's the LAW.

[Robert T]

Hi and welcome to the forum.

Have you tried locking the car from the boot? By what you describe, I would expect this to also lock the passenger door, but not the drivers door, but it is a slightly different wiring route and may point to a problem with the boot loom (aka the loom of doom) if nothing happens with the central locking (the mechanical boot lock will work of course).

If only the drivers door doesn't respond to the central locking, then it is either the actuator in the door, or the wiring leading to it. The actuators are known to fail (like everything, they have a limited life), however they do sometimes start to struggle before they fail, and lubrication can help. Can you hear anything from the drivers door at all when you lock the car with the fob?

Replacing the actuator is a fun job, as it involves removing the door cars. See the knowledgebase on here for details.

Cheers R.

[tonydrac1]

Thanks for your replies,
have tried locking the boot with the key, this does lock the passenger door but not drivers door.
guess i will have to check the loom of doom, before removing the door card.
meantime i wiil attempt to post some pictures.

[kkkrisss]

Sorry to intrude this thread but i have a similar problem.

When i use the key on my passenger's door I lock the whole car but when i do the same on my drivers door I lock only that door.

Does that mean that i have to also look at the driver's door actuator?

I am talking about locking with key only, no remotes.

Thanks.

[BladeRunner919]

Sorry to intrude this thread but i have a similar problem.

When i use the key on my passenger's door I lock the whole car but when i do the same on my drivers door I lock only that door.

Does that mean that i have to also look at the driver's door actuator?

I am talking about locking with key only, no remotes.

Thanks.

Sounds like you need a passenger side actuator - the driver's one works fine, but the passenger one should lock with the driver's door. Does the boot lock/unlock with either?

[Davejue1]

Hi Tonydrac, mine does exactly the same as yours. I make do, I lock it by the fob, if it doesn't lock the passenger door I go round and lock it with the key. I have been told it's the passenger acuator that's to blame. I shall do it as part of the winter maintenance while it's off the road.

[littlefeller]

well lucky you, my passenger door doesn't lock or unlock with the key, it tries too (the little silver sticky thingy tries to move) drivers side is fine so I have just left it hope you sort it though

[bertiejaffa]

I occasionally have an issue whereby the doors all unlock with the remote fine but when I go to open the drivers door with the external handle the door doesn't open. I have to enter via the passenger side and open the drivers door from the inside... It's happened 4/5 times in the last 18 months.... Any thoughts?

[Southernboy]

...... Yep.... door card off and a good squirt of WD40 as the first move. Failing that, remove the entire lock and clean / connect before re-fitting to test it - if all well put it back in.
It's not a very difficult task to remove the lock mechanism, so don't be put off.