dleefsu

Hello - I've been searching and reading all the threads on central locking issues and can't seem to find a very basic piece of info, are the door lock actuators supposed to move freely or move at all manually? One of mine is frozen and seems like should move because other than the locking system not working, I had to really fight to just be able to open the door and could only do it from the outside. I have it out now and the inside and outside door handles work fine with it disconnected so guess is it is supposed to move. Just an FYI is I have other issues as I found corroded and broken loose wires where someone connected an aftermarket remote door lock so just trying to narrow down whats good and what's bad. Right now I'm getting clicking coming from the door lock module but no action at the actuators.

Just for anyone having issues in the doors, don't be afraid to fully pull the door panel, it's a 1 beer process (I just read in the threads people seemingly dreading it). I only mention this because I tried monkeying around with it without removing the panel and it was just a recipe to be more of a frustration than necessary and to also damage the door panel. The only problem I had was having an allen the right length to get one of the bolts off behind the inside door pull. The pull gets in the way and those allens are pretty deep in there. If you're new to all of this, go to every tool place you know of and find different types/lenghts of allens and sockets and extensions and mini and pivoting ratchets... I built up my collection and a little hard to stump me for too long now.

dleefsu

Now I can answer this myself in case someone stumbles across this looking for the same info. The answer is yes, the actuators are supposed to move freely HOWEVER, this does not mean they necessarily work. I had one frozen, one that would move but did not 'actuate'. I replaced both and everything lock related was fixed but did also find a corroded/disintegrated connector under the passenger seat with all the other door lock/security wiring. Another note is that another symptom other than locks not working is it essentially froze the entire door mechanism where the inside pull wouldn't work at all and the outside would with a little tweaking but sometimes wouldn't work at all.