After reading and searching many other problems concerning door locks, none of them described what I'm experiencing.


Noticed this the other day at work...

I went to get in my car to put something on the passenger seat... hit the unlock button- neither driver nor passenger door unlocked. Manually unlocked driver's door. I tried the toggle switch- didn't unlock the door either. The only way to unlock the passenger door now is to do the "double-pull" on the door handle.

When I hit 10MPH+, the passenger door does not lock. The driver's side lock does. When someone gets out of the passenger door, I have to press the black stub down to lock that door and hit the lock button on my key.


No idea what's going on. In the last week this has happened, my CEL came on, I have an odd pulling sensation that pulls me to the right, and a continuous oil leak (car is an '03 with about 34K)...


I'm starting to miss the reliability of my Honda...

Any ideas or anyone else experience this??

 

sounds like a bad actuator. im guessing you're out of warranty. dealer part, dealer installed unless you feel handy. it's a pain to get in there and replace that module.

 

Sounds expensive.

 

Luckily I work at a dealership (not MINI though... unfortunately) and get a discount on labor and parts...

I'm just getting frustrated with this car... low mileage and $19G's later- I have more problems than a $5G Honda with 150,000 miles.

 

no clue as to cost... sorry to hear your MINI is being finicky

 

MINI dealer will charge around $400 per side - if you go that route. parts will run about $120 -ish per lock. realoem and then pelican can be your friends here unless you get the discount you mention above.

but, YES the little things can be a little "disheartening". in the end though the little pain is more than worth it. at least to me...

 

Any idea why they go out?? Seems like a simple enough mechanism!

 

British heritage and electronics don't mix. It's just the Mini going back to it's roots to give you that "full experience".

I think I'd be more worried about the constant oil leak at this point. That doesnt' sound good.

 

yeah oil leaks are a british heritage too . one side of my family is british (from oxford coincendentally), and there's an old english joke about british vehicles:

Q: "why don't the british make Television sets?"

A: "because we haven't discovered a way to make them leak oil yet!"

 

Hahaha Good joke! I'd like it a lot more if it hadn't cost me $300 so far!

Actually, the oil cooler is being replaced (where the leak has been determined to be), so it will be fixed shortly. I hope. The shop working on it (where I work) is filled with idiots- unfortunately nobody told me that when I first brought my car there... so next time I'll take it to one of the other two shops of the other dealerships the company owns on the same lot.


MINI is a group of crafty people... they make you fall in love with a car to the point you're willing to deal with oil leaks, electronics problems, and odd little rattles and squeaks. It's like a beautiful woman with lots of STD's...

 

My driver side is out... I have yet to replace it. I have contact with a tech and he said it's ~$150 per acuator. Sucks... Anyone know how hard it is to install?

-Cody

 

not brain surgery but, can be a real pain...

i preach this all the time but, the best advice i can give anyone who either can't do a particular fix or just doesn't have the time because of work or whatever- is go to your regional forum here on NAM and find a recommended independent MINI specialist in your area. if you can't find one here on NAM, call around or google around. worst case- there will always be a BMW independent shop around. by indpendent i mean a NON dealer, privately owned shop.

case in point, at one time i had my driver's side actuator fail. well, it worked with the key but, not via the toggle or remote. it was irritating but, liveable. $400 repair at the dealer so i held off. THEN my bowden cables went on the passenger side window. i closed my passenger door heard a "CLUNK" when i was walking away. went to check it out and roll down the window. it went down but, wouldn't roll up- not god in L.A. to have an open window in a car 24/7 . i guess when i closed the door and it did the auto up thing when you close it, the bowden cable got chewed by the motor. another $400 dealer fix.

i called my independent (danny at minicorsa here in socal), next day i took the MINI in and he fixed them both for 1/2 the price in like an hour. so if you figure he paid $125-$150 per part (bowden cables and actuators and window motors are roughly the same price), he charged about $100-150 for the labor. the dealer on the other hand was charging $500+ for the labor. sure it wasn't exactly cheap and he made some profit- more power to him he's a good guy, and he deserves a $ or 2. plenty of times he's cut me deals. but, my boss is a **** and i would have lost more $ missing work and cursing the car than i lost paying him. and i saved $350 -$400 on labor.

 

Sounds exactly like the problem I'm having. The passenger door lock is intermittent at best :(

 

I'm having the same problem. Does anyone know of a place online I could find an actuator at a good price? Also is there some sort of door diagram that I could take a look at showing the location of the actuator and things like that? Thanks

 

I would like to know the same things. A part number would be cool .

 

Being that the locks will automatically lock at speed indicates to me the actuators are fine, this is a glitch in the body control module that actually controls tha actuators. A no-cost option to try is to disconnect the battery for about ten minutes and reattach, if it's a glitch, this 'reboot' might help. If not, it could be a fault with the body control module itself. It also can be a fault in the wiring, and the connectors at the body control module. Moisture can sometimes get in and foul the connectors, causing flaky problems.

Just some pondering worth a tuppence.

 

Yes, the Germans overengineer and so things that should be simple are very complex. In addition they don't tell you how to use/access many of the "extras" they have put in.