Electric lock problem?

[LadyHwk750]

I have had 2 instances of this problem in the past week so I'm getting a bit concerned. After parking the car, I have tried to lock it using the key fob. The first time it refused to lock (gave double flash on the head and tail lights) we tried reclosing the passenger door and it then would lock. The second time (tonight) I tried opening then reclosing all the doors, the hatchback, and the hatch window to no avail. Our neighbor came over to see what the problem was and while we talked, the 30 second security feature kicked in and locked the doors for me. The neighbor said they heard there is a problem with some Pontiacs regarding the sensitivity of the sensors which allow the locking mechanism to work. Is this true? Does anyone know anything more about this? Do I need to take the car in to have something adjusted? Any help would be appreciated.

[mu_ohio]

What I noticed is that if all the doors aren't shut you can't lock the doors. A couple days ago, I couldn't lock the doors and then I noticed the rear passenger door wasn't shut completely and once it was closed, it was ok.

[NSimkins]

It seems other people are having other intermittent problems something like you are describing. See the posts below. However, it seems that most of these problems disappear after a short while.door ajar light ::: http://forums.genvibe.com/zerothread?id=488locking mechanism ::: http://forums.genvibe.com/zerothread?id=28already a problem ::: http://forums.genvibe.com/zerothread?id=426
[Modified by NSimkins, 5:56 PM 8/11/2002]

[Frosty]

quote:What I noticed is that if all the doors aren't shut you can't lock the doors. A couple days ago, I couldn't lock the doors and then I noticed the rear passenger door wasn't shut completely and once it was closed, it was ok.Might be a toyota thing. The same thing happened on a Corolla.

[Sputnik]

Yes I believe that I read that about this in the manual. Personally I like this feature.

[LadyHwk750]

Thanks Nick! I had missed the one posting.Well, I've had no problems with the locking mechanism so far today. I wonder if the problem last night had to do with the fact that I parked on an incline? However, I parked in the same place today and the lock worked. I hope you are right and that it will go away. In the meantime, I'm glad for the auto-locking feature in case it acts up again.[Modified by LadyHwk750, 2:23 PM 8/11/2002]
[Modified by LadyHwk750, 2:24 PM 8/11/2002]

[vibb]

After delivery, I noticed that when I didn't press either the 'lock' or 'unlock' buttons deep enough, nothing happened.. Since learning this quirk, it hasn't happened since..

[MA-VIBE-FAN]

quote:I have had 2 instances of this problem in the past week so I'm getting a bit concerned. After parking the car, I have tried to lock it using the key fob. The first time it refused to lock (gave double flash on the head and tail lights) we tried reclosing the passenger door and it then would lock. The second time (tonight) I tried opening then reclosing all the doors, the hatchback, and the hatch window to no avail. Our neighbor came over to see what the problem was and while we talked, the 30 second security feature kicked in and locked the doors for me. The neighbor said they heard there is a problem with some Pontiacs regarding the sensitivity of the sensors which allow the locking mechanism to work. Is this true? Does anyone know anything more about this? Do I need to take the car in to have something adjusted? Any help would be appreciated. According to the owner's manual: For locking, lights would flash once. For unlocking, lights would flash twice. Also the automatic lock feature is designned to work only if "unlock" was hit on the transmitter. You story indicates that the car thinks it is getting an "unlock" signal. If you are pushing the correct buttons, then there could be a problem with the transmitter sending the correct signal , I guess. Is it just one transmitter that gives you problems or has it happened with both?

[LadyHwk750]

Well, I haven't had any more problems with the locks and I've been trading off key fobs to make sure it wasn't that. Here's hoping I won't have any further problems! Thanks for all the questions and advice!

[reuseaway]

I recently put a small dent in my hatchback backing into a loading dock.

After that the hatchback stopped locking.

I took off the plastic pannel to see if I could fix it. It was a small dent and I thought I could pop it out from the back and things would realign and the lock would work again. No luck but I did discover an alternate fix.

There are two actuator bars that connect to the back of the key lock. I disconnected the one that goes down to the trunk latch.

After that the fob would lock and unlock the hatchback, but the key will not. I can live with that. The small dent put extra stress on the bar between the latch and the lock.

Charlie