Door Locks: Van thinks the drivers door is open

[Steve_Martin1612]

Hello All,
Beginning today, my van has decided that the drivers door is open when the door is firmly shut, displaying both the clearable message and the unclearable warning icon in the instrument cluster. This is also affecting locking - the van will not lock sounding the horn indicating that a door is ajar.

Can anyone recommend anything / switches to hunt down and clean / spray with WD40 before I plug in FORscan?

I'm thinking water ingress somewhere as we are right in the middle of storms Dudley and Eunice, so its been a bit soggy for the past couple of days.

Battery is fine, replaced back in December due to the eggy-smell so no issue with alternator, locks work fine, I replaced the drivers door with a Hykee and bezel 10 months ago, and there is no damage to the lock.

I know my signature should say it but this is a
2014 3.2 L1H1 Transit Custom

Thanks,
Steve

[Airthies]

3.2 custom? That's a rare beast.

I'd be starting with the door lock checking for the switch function to tell it it's shut, followed by the door harness plug at the pillar looking for corrosion or water.



Seng frod gay Armor 8 Prolapse pulsing Crapatalk

[Altransit]

3.2 custom? That's a rare beast.

320 maybe 3200kg GVW?

[Steve_Martin1612]

Sorry yes, typing in a hurry this morning, its a 3300, though the gvw probably won't make a difference in this instance

[Steve_Martin1612]

Been a bit busy this last week to go and check on this, though today was dry and I had a few moments to investigate further:

Problem appears to have resolved itself; went out to discover the van locked, yet responding both to the control and the key.
Couldn't be much more obvious unless it held-up a sign - WATER INGRESS causing short. My money is the wiring loom, though I couldn't see any obvious signs of corrosion or ingress on the door harness

Any advice will be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Steve

[aln101tf]

Highly likely to be the door loom where it goes from the body to the door.
Customs have poor quality cabling in the door looms. Maybe other places too?
The insulation is extremely stiff and cracks if flexed. Hardly ideal for a door loom. Then the moisture gets in and the conductor rots.
I wouldn't get too happy that its working again. For now.
Have a good look at the door wiring. Slit the corrugated cover along the underside and you'll probably find lots of the thin black cables cracked.
My 2013 tourneo drivers door was bad at 5 years old, and already had some dodgy repairs to the cables before I got it.
Had to replace it when the vehicle wouldn't lock because it thought the drivers door was open! Cable was broken too close to the multiplug to repair.
New loom under £100 from ford, and took a couple of hours to replace.
Downside:- it looked like the same crap quality as the original
rgds Alan

[Steve_Martin1612]

Thanks for this Alan, right on cue, the problem has resurfaced.

But its not the loom - this is in excellent condition - took some photo's as I was going along: all dry, no ingress and all cables intact and attached, with no wear / splitting and cracking on the cable insulation either.
The multi-plugs are also all good, no corrosion flaring, or any damage to the terminals - as good as the day that Ford built it.

But, I did discover an interesting point, removed the boot from the door just to check, and whilst wiggling the clip around to get it out so I could reattach the boot, I kept knocking the cable, which in turn kept activating the lights on alarm, although the lights on indicator did not show, so now trying to work out what else this alarm is used for - my lights are all working.

I'm wondering whether this is related to the Hykee install last summer as I had a fault appear about 3 months after installing, and installing was an absolute pain.
This fault rendered the catch inoperable, but randomly started 14 weeks after install: going around a roundabout at the bottom of the M50 on a Thursday afternoon in September last year when the door flew open, and would not hold shut. Strangely, the release cable had managed to become trapped beneath one of the door card screws.

I'll have the card off again tomorrow morning to see if its this or indeed a different problem inside the door causing this new fault.

Steve

[Steve_Martin1612]

Also checked Forscan - no DTC's for the locks / locking system, and the BCM testing came back clear.

Time to have the door card off - once it stops raining

Steve

[Steve_Martin1612]

Door card off, all is fine, dry and in good order: no broken wires, loose cabling etc.

Small amount of moisture on the loom inside the door - nothing much, and nothing more than expected.

I should add here that the lock mechanism does work, both from the key and the button, so the circuit is intact, we'd know if it had failed as this would show as a fault in the BCM module: I had this last year in my 66 Focus - the cabling had been severed by the window killing all circuitry to the door: locks, window, sound, the door was locked shut; Main Stealer had fun getting the door open.

Seriously beginning to suspect the Hykee might be to blame

[Steve_Martin1612]

Quick call to Ford who explained that if it isn't the loom, then it could only be the latch, or latch cabling.

Got a bit more medieval on the loom - just in case: right in the middle I've found 2 broken wires.

They look repairable even in the short term, so as Ford are quoting £150 inc vat for the part (going to need to shop around here) and the loom's got to come out to be replaced, I'll give soldering a go - IF I can work out which cables they join to

[Steve_Martin1612]

Well that was easy, took about an hour to repair end-to-end. I had two wires to solder, easy to identify as thankfully, one pair were slightly thicker / had more strands than the other.
Also, had four additional wires that were beginning to fail, so I've patched with insulation tape - hopefully this will last as the bulk of the problem seems to stem from the wires rubbing against one another. Although as this problem is usually only picked-up when the van fails to realise the door is shut, I'm hoping this should be it for me.

Not bad for an 8 year old Custom with 170k, considering the loom is still the original.

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For those in the same predicament, you can just as easily check repairs without needing to fully reposition the loom, though by feeding back through the door enough for testing, its more tidier and less likely to damage the wires or blocks when shutting the door.

Aha! Eat that Ford, no more moolah from me today

[Jobbo]

Firstly.. Drivers door stopped locking on fob..(Initially thought it was where I'd changed the cylinder)
Then problem progressed to "Door Open"

Yep, the bloody loom again...

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[Collister35]

I’m having a similar issue but mine is not recognising when I open the door to get out. It then leaves the radio on even after I’ve locked up and walked away. I have to open and close the passenger side every time I get out the van.
Changed the loom today and still no joy. I’m thinking it could be the locking mechanism now.