donccullen
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- Aug 11, 2005
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- VT ACCLAIM WAGON
Thought I'd post this as a warning to anyone having problems with central locking. For weeks my drivers door would occasionally refuse to open with the remote and I'd have to put the key in the lock to open it, but mostly it would open up fine. Sometimes all the other doors would lock with the remote but the drivers door would refuse to lock until I put the key in the lock. This went on for weeks not getting any worse but not getting any better.
There are several posts in Justcommodores suggesting that a good spray of WD40 would cure everything so I pulled off the door trim and greased up all of the connections to the door handle and lock in case things were just needing some loosening up, but this made no difference. A week or so later I was having to use the key almost every time but then one day I found the door refused to open with remote or key and was fully deadlocked ie. couldn't be unlocked from outside OR inside the car. My mechanic checked and confirmed that the body computer was fine but the actuator in the door was not responding, so thats when I wished I'd had it fixed sooner!!!
Once the actuator in the door has seized up the only way to get it fixed is to hack a hole throught the inside door trim just above the armrest to get the old actuator out, not a pleasant job! Anyone who has removed a commodore door trim will know that the door trim is screwed on and the screws are only accessable when the door is open. The replacement actuator cost $129 from Holden and then you either have to patch up the door trim yourself, find a matching replacement from a wreckers or pay $77 for the cloth insert from Holden or $160 for a complete door trim.
My local Holden dealer (Ringwood VIC) had 70 actuators in stock, thats $9000 worth of them so that suggests to me that replacing them is fairly common.
So here's the tip, if you are having problems with a door that doesn't always lock or unlock get it fixed BEFORE you have to hack through your door trim to fix it.
There are several posts in Justcommodores suggesting that a good spray of WD40 would cure everything so I pulled off the door trim and greased up all of the connections to the door handle and lock in case things were just needing some loosening up, but this made no difference. A week or so later I was having to use the key almost every time but then one day I found the door refused to open with remote or key and was fully deadlocked ie. couldn't be unlocked from outside OR inside the car. My mechanic checked and confirmed that the body computer was fine but the actuator in the door was not responding, so thats when I wished I'd had it fixed sooner!!!
Once the actuator in the door has seized up the only way to get it fixed is to hack a hole throught the inside door trim just above the armrest to get the old actuator out, not a pleasant job! Anyone who has removed a commodore door trim will know that the door trim is screwed on and the screws are only accessable when the door is open. The replacement actuator cost $129 from Holden and then you either have to patch up the door trim yourself, find a matching replacement from a wreckers or pay $77 for the cloth insert from Holden or $160 for a complete door trim.
My local Holden dealer (Ringwood VIC) had 70 actuators in stock, thats $9000 worth of them so that suggests to me that replacing them is fairly common.
So here's the tip, if you are having problems with a door that doesn't always lock or unlock get it fixed BEFORE you have to hack through your door trim to fix it.