The electric door locks on my '96 Legacy OBW have become sluggish. Whether operated by remote control or the driver's door master lock switch, some of the doors don't lock or unlock reliably. Repeated activation often causes every door lock to eventually work. Has anyone had experience with this problem? Is this likely a lock mechanism lubrication issue or failing actuators? The car now has about 75k miles.
Ed P
My 91 is a horror. My wife refuses to ride in it because she's been trapped by the locks engaging when she tries to open the door. I had one lock changed on the driver front, but at a cost of $400.
Subaru need to get their tails sued off for faulty door locks. and i'm surprised it hasn't happened yet.
it seems they hve a couple springs in the actuator and one spring weakens and lets the "lock" spring override it.
This is the only thing that really irks me about my Subie.
I've had both problems mentioned above and they are both different. The orininal post was abour electic locks not functioning properly, this happent to me soon after I got my alarm installed which had remote central locking. To fix this I simply removed the inside door pannels and sprayed some CRC on the offending locking mechanisms and then used the drivers lock a few times untill they all worked properly.
The problem Mac rased occures when a little plastic tab that holdes the tension on the door lock torsion spring breaks. The door lock mechanism feels soft. The lock is designed ( for safety reasons I assume) to lock if the lock is not fully unlocked when the door lever is pulled.(this stops "children" falling out of cars when they are playing with the lock) The problem is when this tab breakes the lock never fully unlocks and hence every time you go to open the door it locks on you. (how may time can you put the word 'lock' in one paragraph? :-).
anyway to fix it all you have to do is make a replacement tab for the spring. Or use a bit of string and tie it around the hook at the end of the torsion spring and tie the other end of the string to something in the door. I did this about 2 years ago when I was in a rush to get a Warrent of Fitness for the car and the string is still going strong today and it didn't cost anywhere near $400
Cheers Mike
Thanks Mike, I have the exact same problem as Mac. I had a look at the mechanism and came to the same conclusion as you. I did not get around to Macgyvering a fix though.
I'll try it out today.
Cheers, Paul.
MIKE wrote:
I'll have to look into what you suggest. Thanks!
MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.