Hello all. OK, when you close a door there are two clicks. The first is what I will refer to as the safety latch, the second is when it fully shuts in place. One of the rear doors on the s type has a habit of coming open to the safety latch as you drive along. You can close it up fully again and after driving for a while its popped back to the safety latch position. If you close the door too hard it also recoils back to the safety latch position.
Looking at the closed door from outside it looks correctly positioned (equal gap right around) and I am confident the body isnt flexing.
I am assuming that the lock catch attached to the body (or the equivalent piece on the door) are worn and allowing just enough play such that when the car goes over a rough bit of road and the doors move that 1 or 2 (or 3)mm it is just enough for it to escape the fully latched position.
Has anyone else bumped into a similar issue please?

 

The door mechanisms all work basically the same way. Here is a conceptual drawing:


Blue circle is the bar grab or catch. The rose-colored lever is supposed to stay seated until a spring loaded rod pushes it up (green arrow), and this then forces the main locking lever to move into the safety (or open) position. Your mechanism is probably faulty is some way so that the rose-colored lever wiggles loose when it hits a bump, etc.

For more details on door locks, see this post (note: it's a Jaguar XJ6 discussion).

 

Thanks for the reply - much appreciated.

 

The S Type doorlock does not latch over a pin.

It is similar to the Mk2 here:

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/m...3/#post1815865

 

Thanks Glyn and KrissMotors. Using these threads I determined that the issue was a badly positioned striker plate (ie the receiver that is on the body that the door lock goes into. Once adjusted the lock now holds.
Cheers

 

Pleased it's sorted!