Strange Door Lock Behavior

XJ-S
1

Well, having put up with some similar issues with my old '95 XJS coupe (“Supercat”), it looks like some of them have struck again with Superblue, my '94 coupe. :angry:

I was always very happy to have no door locking issues with Superblue before now. You push the fob button, she chirps and the doors lock. Push the fob again and the doors unlock. Other than that, they never lock or unlock (i.e. on their own).

Tonight I go to start the car up, and before I can back out I hear the doors suddenly lock. That would be fine, btw, on my X-308 “Harlem”, btw, but they’re not supposed to do that automatically for safety on an XJS (right?). When I get to my destination I try hitting the fob button to unlock the doors. The system makes the usual “chirp”, but the locks don’t budge. :open_mouth: I have to move the paddle on the door to unlock it (or could have used the key, I guess), noting that this doesn’t trigger the passenger door lock to do likewise, like it should (although I did get it to do just that later on once while going down the road). :confused: I shut my door and then hit the fob to lock the driver’s door. Again, the chirp, but no movement. I have to reach in the open window and lock the paddle by hand Hitting the fob again to unlock them (hopefully), I get the chirp again and no movement, but followed this time a few seconds later by those ominous “countdown” chirps. I quickly hit the fob again to abort the countdown before all hell sounded.

What is going on here, and how do I fix it? I know it can’t be a weak battery in the car, b/c I replaced it with a brand new one less than a month ago. The outdoor temps obviously are not exactly freezing here, either. I had thought it might be a weak fob battery, but then why would I hear the chirps strongly if so? :confused:

2

That’s a common indicator that the battery is going, but since you’ve just bought one, let’s rule that out.

There is a locking relay. I wonder if that’s causing the problem? That locking relay, if I recall correctly, is tucked in a recess by the ECU, near the passenger footwell. Actually, it’s close to the passenger door in the footwell. You might not see it, since it’s pretty well hidden, but it’s where all the wires go in/out. I believe it’s held in place with a fastener of some kind. I can’t remember.

The only other explanation is that there’s something that needs to be lubed. The actuator at the door? Usually that just prevents the particular door from locking/unlocking. Having neither door lock is just too coincidental.