I have noticed in the past few weeks, that the lock in the rear left doors showed a delay in its action. The lock produced a click, however the movement came a bit later. In the last 2 weeks, things got worse. The pin wouldn’t come up or down and I had to repeat the locking/unlocking sequence to get the door opened. Clearly, the actuator was just about to give up, so a replacement was scheduled.

The parts have come and today I went for it. For me, this was an advanced task because the steps would involve taking down the door panel, side airbag and the vapor barrier, which is glued with a “tar” tape. And then – of course – lock removal. The procedure is nicely described in this post, which I used as a reference, although the operation is straight forward anyway. But it’s good to have a check-list to follow.

Of course I ran into a small glitch anyway. When the trim was removed and the vapor barrier too, I was trying to remove the lock unit. It’s located in the top left corner of the door, right in the spot where almost no room is left for manipulation. During the process, I had to remove a plastic nipple holding the bowden cable. Exactly as described in the manual, I had to push the small arm upwards against a spring and then use small Allen key to rotate the nipple and being able to unhook the cable. And as I was just thinking that I must not let the small Allen key go because it would fall directly into the door, it happened. With a nice clicking sound, the key disappeared into the doorframe. Well.. :).

I ignored the issue and went to finish the whole process. Once the actuator was replaced and everyting put back in place, I needed to pick up the lost key. Mainly because it kept producing a loud ticking sound when the door was moving. So I made myself a reacher/pick-up tool from a bamboo stick and a magnet. Luckilly, the tools are made of steel and not from aluminum…

I finished after 2,5 hours, including hunting for the key. The vapor barrier was sealed with a butyl tape, which worked quite well. And the lock now works just fine, clicking and buzzing as good as new. Which it is, ha :). And I’ve gained some new experience. Plus, the car is a step closer to be perfect.

Erm..and yes, with the actuator, the package actually also included the edge protectors and seals, which I destroyed few days back. I changed them too, took me only half an hour, as I’m quite experienced in this now :).