Central locking delay

[G60rob 0]

When I turn the key in either door lock the central locking seems to work normally, except the button on the passenger door doesn't go all the way down, then after about 15-20 seconds there's a buzz and it goes down the rest of the way. It started after I'd accidentally knocked the claw thing on the lock block (that engages with the peg on the door pillar) without noticing and tried to shut the door. The claw only needed clicking back into position to allow the door to shut, but then this delayed action problem started.

Any ideas what's going on?

Oh, and I've just discovered that if I set the manual alarm it goes off soon after the passenger door locks. Sounds like a microswitch problem?

[dinkus 10]

It sounds like something is still amiss with your central locking (possibly a vacuum leak somewhere).

 

But, it's worth noting that the locking is 2-stage. The first stage locks the doors, then 20secs or so later the doors go into deadlock mode. Can't remember off the top of my head if the locking pins actually go down any futher during that stage though - I don't think so, but the CL pump definitely whirrs.

[_Monkey 0]

Mine's been doing this ever since I bought it.

 

Seems to work ok off of the alarm though...

[G60rob 0]

Dunno about a vacuum leak - all the locks open OK.

More clues: all the doors can be locked from inside by pushing down the driver's door button but the passenger door button doesn't operate the central locking. Also the interior passenger door release handle has gone all floppy i.e. there's a lot of slack before it releases the latch.

I'm going in to see what I can see...

 

Later that same day...

 

Problem solved! I removed the lock just to see how it worked really, couldn't find anything wrong, put it back and everything was back to normal. It's a bit frustrating not knowing what was wrong, I suppose it must have been just a slight mis-alignment of something.

The only thing is, the central locking doesn't operate from the passenger door button, as the Bentley manual says it should, but come to think of it, I'm not sure it ever did. Some of the stuff in the Bentley manual doesn't seem quite the same as my car, but that's VWs for you.

[cormjah 0]

the problem, as you say, is down to something fouling in the lock mech. I've just done the passat door handle conversion. The slightest resistance (misalignment) and the lock *backs off*. I guess it's some kind of safety feature. Took me a fair bit of fiddling but it all works now. A good test is to take the handle off and try the locks. you can then test to see if its locked proprery by pressing the tab the handle striker hits through the hole the handle usually sits in. if it locks then you know there's a problem with the handle mech fouling the lock. If you're still getting grief, take the door card off and remove the door catch. tale a look behind the membrane on the door at the c/l mech. id it has a good strong pull then you probably bave a problem with the door catch. If not it's gonna be a case of working your way back along the pump system to dig out the fault - I don't even want to think about going there!