Hi there,

I've been driving my late father's Van Den Plas for a few years now and have done lots of various repairs on it. Recently, the door locks and security system seem to be shorting out randomly. I'll be driving along and suddenly my doors will lock and/or my windows will roll up. I've stopped and turned off the car to reset it, but there is still definitely an issue. Yesterday my back passenger side window went DOWN by itself for the first time, and I couldn't get it back up. I looked in the manual and found that there is a little switch at the bottom of the driver's side window control panel that you can reset. However, it didn't work at first, so I drove around for a while, tried it repeatedly, and then it worked! Anyway, do I need to replace fuses and/or relays to fix this issue? Any ideas? My mechanic retired in December and I would like to see if this is something I can do on my own. Thanks in advance for any advice you may have!

Amanda

 

Amanda: we have a basic problem: you have not identified your car model adequately and that means that information given to you here may not, probably will not be, accurate for your car.

I see by your profile that you live in the US. If your car is a 1990 Vanden Plas, it is important to state whether it is an American-market car or, by chance, an imported Canadian-market car (since both markets had “ Vanden Plas” models, but entirely different from one another).

They are fundamentally different. The US car is what is known as an XJ40 (the factory code for that body style) and has a 6 cylinder engine whereas a 1990 Vanden Plas for the Canadian market is known as a Series III car and has a V12 engine (again, based on the body style). The have NOTHING in common. And you have posted here to the forum list that covers the Series III cars, not the XJ40 cars.

I know, an excessively long way of saying that you might have posted to the wrong forum. Based on your description of the issues, that is my guess. The forum you want is almost certainly the XJ40 list (unless your car has the V12 engine!); you will get a more informed response from the people there.

 

Hi there,

My car is a 6 cylinder, so an American Vanden Plas -- had no idea these were completely different. I'll look for the correct forum to post this to, and thanks!

Amanda