On our 2005 XJ8L, the door locks had been working as expected prior to replacing the door panel recently. Since I had replaced the door panel (seemed to have gone smoothly), the driver door locking is not working as expected.

When attempting to unlock the doors with key fob, the driver door frequently refuses to unlock, and often the lock mechanism cycles 4 or 5 times, usually leaving all other doors unlocked, but not the driver door. Similar behavior with locking procedure.

Usually using the key will allow the door to unlock.

The door handle and locking tab seem to be in good condition and supposedly no different than the original, and everything else works great.

Is there some kind of retraining needed, or adjustment? Since then, I have successfully replaced an air spring (front right with Arnott), and the rear brakes, which both required a battery negative disconnect. I don't recall if I had disconnected the battery to do the door panel.

I think I will be removing the door panel again and taking a look, but I'm first hoping that perhaps I missed a step somewhere. Any ideas?

THANKS IN ADVANCE!

 

Ok so I believe that the actuators on these X350 are fragile and when I removed the door panel, I may have accidentally tugged on the cable connection too hard (didn't see it at first), which may have messed with the actuators "stop points". Since I have yet to take one of these apart, I am not sure what kind of limit switch method they use or if they can be adjusted. I am going to buy a used actuator on eBay for now and see what happens.

 

I read Henry's door lock actuator removal and lube post, so I will see about the current one after getting another good used one. I need to make sure I have a backup in case I screw it up worse.

 

OK so I bought a $80 used actuator from ebay (real nice low mileage unit) and installed it. Everything is kosher again with the door locks.

It seems that when working with the door panels, be careful not to yank on the lock handle cable (I forgot it was still attached when I removed the panel), as it may damage the unit (which mine did). I have not yet taken it apart to view what physically happens in there, so I will attempt to have a look someday. At this point all is well so I will keep it as a potential backup for now. :-)