driver door lock weirdness

[jertapper]

The driver door lock sometimes doesn't want to unlock and sometimes when I do unlock it it locks itself back a second later. I have read this could be the door lock timer but the passenger door works fine. This leads me to believe it has to be an issue with the lock mechanism on that door. It does seem a bit more difficult to unlock manually by moving the lock knob to the unlocked open position.

I have the panel off but it seems like it would be a huge pain to do anything there inside the door through these rather small holes. I don't see any easy way to take more of the door apart if I were to replace something in there.

Anyone have any ideas on how I can more exactly diagnose my problem and properly decide what part to buy? Thanks.

Edit: I'm thinking I might just get the actuator and lock assembly and try and replace them.
Modified by jertapper at 8:10 AM 4/26/2009

[yodawill2000]

Even though its only that door it sure sounds like the timer.Something is telling the lock solenoid to lock.

[jertapper]

Even though its only that door it sure sounds like the timer.Something is telling the lock solenoid to lock.

I appreciate the reply yoda. I read through every "door lock" thread in the J30 section. I'm about to go hit it HARD with lubricant and see if that doesn't help.

I was totally throw off by the fact that it's just the driver door and that it does work for unlocking and locking at times. It has been happening randomly since a week or two ago. I couldn't unlock it and get out one day. I would unlock it and then it would re-lock itself. I had to roll down the window...put the key in the door and unlock it and that unlocked it fine and then I could open it. Then I went about another week with no problems.

Last night I looked outside and noticed an interior light was on and I knew I hadn't left anything on. I went out there and the door latch wouldn't close and it was being strange again. I took the door panel off and at some point in time it decided to behave and when I closed the latch with a screwdriver it stuck (which it wouldn't do before since it wouldn't stay closed). So I closed her up and decided to wait until it was light out today to mess with it.

I guess maybe replacing the door lock timer would be worth a try based on the much less time it would take to do. Then if that fixes it I'd be happy I didn't have to do the harder, more time consuming work. Problem is...although fuzzycats (Carlos) said it was $60 from somewhere (TJ???) it's $125 from infiniti parts usa. That's a little steep to replace something that isn't broken to possibly save me time. I'd be willing to spend $60 though. Any ideas where I could get it for that price or where Carlos was talking about? Thanks.

[jertapper]

I just went out and worked on it a bit. Couldn't get it open today. The lock knob when moved by hand didn't want to go all the way to the unlocked position. There was resistance and when I forced it past the resistance it didn't really unlock as the door wouldn't open. I sprayed lube in there and worked it back and forth and it started to move without the resistance. At this point the door would open. Now it seems to be working fine, for now. The question is what part to I need to purchase. I can't tell. I think this rules out the door lock timer though. What should I be replacing?

It seems what happened was it was unable to open the driver door...so it was in a locked state...so it locked all the doors. If I went to any of the other doors I could unlock them individually with no problems. That kind of made it seem like it was door lock timer related.

I just tried it again and there is much resistance when I pull the lock knob to the unlocked position. If I spray a bunch of lube in there it loosens up but it's never as free as any of the other doors. There is so little room to work with and everything seems connected. I do not look forward to doing this job at all. they should've made this metal inside panel removable for me
Modified by jertapper at 10:18 AM 4/26/2009

[Victor]

My 94 J30T does the same thing. Sometimes it even tries to lock me in the car and I have to pull on the manual door unlock control really hard to get out while the mechanism is making a buzzing sound. Sometimes it works O.K. , but at other times it won't lock when I want it to or locks when I don't want it to. The remote door lock never works, although it does work for the trunk. The easiest thing for me is just use the key to lock and unlock the door when the car gets ornery. I think it may just need some lube, but I am too lazy to take the door panel apart to try to lube it. I did take my Infiniti G20 door panel apart several times and got pretty good at it. Has anyone worked on both and is the J30 much harder or different?If changing the timer works let us know, and also where did you buy the timer and how much was it, and how hard to change it?

[jertapper]

I don't think I'm going to bother with the door lock timer. I'm somewhat confident that the latch or actuator is the issue since there is no way the door lock timer could make the movement of the locking/unlocking knob to be so rough that I have to kind of force it and the key turning isn't enough to unlock it. I wouldn't mind someone else weighing in with their more educated opinion

[truckmen]

I have this same problem with similar symptoms. What did you do to fix it? My problem is at only one door. Should I still go under the dash?

[jertapper]

I hate that I abandoned this thread. Sorry. I remember calling Infiniti parts usa and the guy said the part he sells the most of and I went with that. When I got it I replaced it and haven't had any problems since (except the interior handle breaking...not too hard of a fix).

I am pretty sure it was the actual latch I replaced, not the actuator. I remember removing the big screws (3 I think) that went into the side of the door.

As long as the price wasn't too bad I would probably replace both while I was in there if I had to do it again.