Not long ago, the central locking system in my '98 GTI started misbehaving. Current behavior is that when I hit the remote or dash switch to unlock them, the driver's side usually unlocks (slowly), but the passenger side knob merely creeps up to about 1/4 of the way up -- not enough to actually open the door. Usually, hitting the switch to lock things will make the driver's side twitch down about 1/4 of the way (but not enough to actually lock) and returns the passenger door to its original position. There are occasional variations in the behavior, so just leaving it as-is and pretending I don't have power locks isn't a good option-- the passenger door has managed at least three times to successfully unlock but not relock without me noticing.
Spent an afternoon in a friend's shady garage with the trusty Bentley manual.
Nothing seems wrong electrically-- the air pump in the trunk is triggered at all the right times and whirs away. I haven't yet caught it running at a time it shouldn't be. Pulled the driver-side door panel, and there is indeed air making it all the way through the tube. On visual inspection, the connectors in the left door, trunk, and the T-connector under the back seat all seem fine-- but it still seems to me that I've got a leaky connector or line somewhere.
I'm just not having any luck thinking of a workable way to troubleshoot the system. A friend also has a '98 GTI, and I plan to ask him to let me swap in his air pump for a moment to make sure that isn't the problem. Assuming the pump test and my continued visual inspection (still have to do passenger door) go OK, does anyone have suggestions on good methods to identify where the leak is? Or am I way off target here in thinking it's a leak?
Thanks for the use of your brain cells,
-CPC