UK-POLOS.NET - THE VW Polo Forum

Hey!

I have for the last couple of months been unable to lock my car, except the driver door when locked manually with key and keyhole. I have for a long time noticed some strange habits with regards to the driver door such as the cabin light not turning on when door is opened, and lack of "light chime" if you open the door with driving lights still on. Now the car has all of a sudden stopped locking. I have also noticed the following things.

- Unable to lock the car with central locking system, but able to unlock with central locking system (that is if I've locked the door manually).
- The lock button in the cabin will not lock any doors, but will unlock the doors.
- The car does not recognize if the driver door is open, not as a door warning or turning on cabin light or sounding a "light chime"
- All the other doors will be displayed as a door warning light and turn on the cabin lights
- The alarm won't arm
- When locking the car manually, only the driver door will lock and no flashing of the indicators.
- After shutting down the car and locking the door manually, the lights and dash does not go out as they used to but only after a while.

Does anyone have a clue of what may be the fault here?

I think that you need to start with examining the cabling that comes out from the driver's side door pillar into the door, I'd suspect that some wiring has been chopped with regular opening/closing of the driver's side door.

There are ways to secure your car, ie you can manually lock each of the other side doors, and use the key barrel to lock the driver's door.

Alright, tanks!

Are you reffering to mechanical or electrical cabling? I would have thought that manually locking the car would bypass electrical signals and also lock all the other doors?

First, I'm suggesting that it is a wiring issue, ie broken wires.

It has to be possible for any car that has central locking, to be locked up even if the system fails or the battery fails or gets removed, manually locking individual doors does not, I think, confuse any of the rest of the central locking system.

To manually lock any/all doors other than the driver's side front door, look on the rear of the opened door facing, you should find a soft black rubber plug with a padlock emblem on it and a rectangular indent, remove that rubber plug and use the blade of the car key to lock that door by flicking the part that gets exposed by maybe 30 degrees, refit the rubber cover and shut that door, it will now be locked without being deadlocked. That means that it can be opened from the inside, or by pressing the global unlock button inside the car or on the key fob.

I feel that everyone should acquaint themselves with this feature BEFORE they need to have to use it.

Note, sloppy QA standards in VW ZA can mean few if any rubber covers fitted to these doors!

It sounds more like a faulty drivers door latch/catch to me as this is where the interior light micro switch is located also the unlocking issue from the door button .

Someone correct me if I’m wrong but if the catch is not locked electronically ie with the remote then locked manually with the key blade,then the car doesn’t see that door as locked so can only unlock as a safety feature, also no alarm arming again can only be done via remote ?
All points to a latch failure in the drivers door

Manually locking any given door only mechanically locks that given door it will not do anything electronically ref your question about bypassing the central locking

Thank you for replies!

I have also thought it may be de door sensor.. But I'll have to do some investiation and check the cables as well!