This guide is intended for a mk2+3 polo although it’s the same basic concept on most cars except fords which have a different locking mechanism, obviously you may have to alter my plans to fit a different car. This is merely a guide always follow the instructions as I will take no responsibility if you break your car during the installation.
I brought an aftermarket 4 door kit from a company on eBay called DIYGti and it seems pretty good quality really.
What you’ll need…
Screw drivers (flat and cross)
Drill
Pliers x2
Wire cutters
Possibly wire strippers
Possibly a Heat gun
Electrical tape
…and patience
I would strongly advise you to hook the system up to the battery before you go any further as I didn’t, fortunately I’d connected it to the power wrong but it’s not a nice feeling when you’ve just spent a few hours drilling holes in your car etc and then wonder, maybe it’s the kit that’s faulty (doh!)
Your kit should include…
1 Master solenoid (motor) - opens the central locking if you turn the key in this door, therefore would go in the driver’s door.
1-4 slave solenoids - these receive and will not open/close if you use the key on their respective door.
1 control box – connects all the wires and controls the system.
Screws – screw into things lol
2-4 metal rods – I broke one of mine whilst bending it so I used one of my spare ones as I’d got a 4 door kit, but you can use any strong wire similar to the originals.
2-4 metal brackets – not used in this installation but can be used to give somewhere to attach the solenoids if there’s nowhere inside your door.
This is the basic set up…
My kit came with all the wires pre set up so it was literally plug and play, just had to attach the solenoids to the correct wires (all colour coded) and then plug the wires into the control box. That just leaves the 12v live which should have an inline fuse, this attaches to the power, and an earth wire which should be attached to a part of bare chassis.
Remove the door cards…
1. prise off the covers on the window wiper handle and door handle, and remove using the screws holding them on
2. On the actual door handle lever, slide the surround forwards towards the front of the car and it should pop off.
3. Now remove the 4 screws along the sides of the door card, with a little force the card should be able to be pulled off by lifting it up and out.
Remove the protective sheet…
If your plastic sheeting has been removed before then I’d recommend changing it whilst doing this installation as it’s a common area for leakage, I used a scalpel to carefully cut around the white plastic blocks which hold the trim on, then peel it off being careful not to rip it if your planning on re-use.
The polo’s driver door will not lock whilst it’s open so make sure it’s shut if you need to lock it or test your work.
This is what you should see now and you can see where I mounted my solenoids, as you can see the top screw hole is just above the white block for the trim so be careful whilst drilling as you may not have much room for error if you drill in the wrong place.
The solenoid should fit in nicely just against the curving edge, before you do any drilling make sure your window mechanism doesn’t interfere with the solenoid at all as you may have to improvise something if it does…in my mk2 it was fine though.
Connecting it to the locking mechanism…
If you put your head inside the door and look up towards the top right you should be able to see a small lever which sticks out with a hole in it. Take note that the lever is actually blocked by a cover which makes connecting the rod a tad more interesting. You will need the rod to go up around the outside of the cover then hook over into the lever with a little tip on the end so it holds it in place.
It took me about 2 hours to fit my first rod but then 15 minutes to fit the second one, so hopefully this guide should let you do it faster than me, the rods took a lot of trial and error but my final rods looked like this…
As you can see, the rod hooks on the solenoid at the bottom, goes up around the cover, bends back in and hooks on the lock lever. These rods are a nightmare to bend accurately, I used a heat gun to soften the metal and then 2 sets of pliers to bend it and it worked pretty well…make sure you measure it all properly and make sure you have the lock down and the solenoid down when you take the measurement, I measured my 1st attempt wrong and then snapped it trying to correct it (as mentioned earlier). If you’ve got the rods working fine then you’ve won 90% of the battle.
You should already have the wiring worked out by now, if so then plug it all in and have a check. And check the windows still wind down and don’t touch the rods or wires. I connected the live wire to my always live wire on my CD player but you can use any wire connected to the battery e.g. cig lighter. I taped up the wires (although feel free to do something a bit more professional) and then fed them out through the corner of the door card and into the car and up inside the dash where I dumped all the remaining electrical gubbings out of eyesight, simply remove the 2 screws on either side of the steering wheel and the dash cover should drop down, tape everything down so it doesn’t create lose wires whilst driving and then close it all up.
Refit the plastic sheeting ensuring all the holes are where they’re supposed do be and no huge gaps in the sides for water to get in. finally replace the door cards and then click away at your hearts content safe in the knowledge that you did it yourself.
p.s
This allows you to de-lock your handles if you want too, using 5 door rear golf handles, I’m probably just going to do the passenger side as I don’t want to have to break a window if my key fob battery runs out.
