I have a 99 forester that the drivers door will unlock, but the others won't from either the switch or the remote.  I am thinking that the door lock timer has gone bad.  My question is; so you guys agree and where is the little bugger located in that car?

 

Thanks

 

Mike

Edited August 26, 201312 yr by mdjdc

behind dash on passengers side.  i was never able to get to mine, they are unbelievably difficult to get out without major disassembly, i never actually saw or figured out how to get at it.  there's a thread about it where i posted and posted and people commented and i couldn't get it out.  still driving the car with flaky locks, it's just locked sometimes when i come to it eventhough i didn't lock it.

 

they are known to fail and that's probably it.  not sure how to test.  mine randomly locks overnight.

Edited August 26, 201312 yr by grossgary

Occasionally when I unlock the drivers door on my 96 the other doors do not unlock with it. Flipping the lock lever again (lock-unlock) then makes them unlock.

Of course it only happens when I'm unlocking the car from the outside, so I can't listen for the relay to click on-off. (Probably wouldn't help any)

I figured it must be a dirty switch contact in the door since flipping the lock again always makes it work, and it will work fine for several weeks or days afterwards.

Recently it has become more frequent. Happening several times in the last two weeks. Wondering now if I'm going to have a dead lock timer relay on my hands soon?

fairtax - mine does that too - flipping the lock doesn't unlock the others...doing it multiple times may eventually unlock them, but it's gotten much worse over the years.

 

y'all take pix please because i couldn't get to it - i've never even bolted the bits back in place so it's ready as soon as i figure out how.

Gary does flipping it to lock still lock the other doors? Unlocking seems to be the only issue for mine. I always hear the relay and the lock solenoids click when I flip it back to lock.

can't recall and since it's gotten much worse over the years i wouldn't know what it did years ago when it started.

if that's all yours is doing then maybe you're lucky and it's just the switch itself?   guess i should check but enough folks have had timer problems i'm sort of assuming that's it since it randomly locks itself.

 

i'd love for it to be a switch since the timer is impossible to get to.