Central Locking

[Aksium]

Hey all,

A couple of days ago I began to have problems with my central locking on my 1987 325e. Typically you can lock or unlock all of the doors and the trunk on the car using the key and the lock on the trunk. Now, I can only lock or unlock the trunk and not any of the other doors. Same thing goes for the driver's side, I used to be able to unlock all of the doors by unlocking the driver's side but now I can't. To make sure its all locked up I have to close the drivers door walk around to the other side and lock the driver side by reaching from the passenger side. Any ideas as to why the sudden change? Is there a central unit that needs to be replaced? or is it maybe a wiring issue?

Thanks.

[Bear]

I can only relate to E32. but in my case it was a broken support for the cental locking solenoid behind the drivers door panel. When this support breaks it allows the solenoid to become mis-aligned and the entire lock process is affected. I had to have a friend weld (and the metal here is pot metal, it would rather melt than weld) the fracture and now all is well.

Question, have you tried resynchronizing the locks:

Close all doors and trunk.

Lock passenger door by turing to emergency lock position (approximatley 110 degrees from "0".

Unlock the drivers door

Pray.

[Aksium]

Hey thanks for the advice. Anyways, the problem I forgot to mention was that the passenger door was replaced after an accident before I got the car so the key does not work in the passenger side.

Will I have to take some stuff apart to get at the selenoid or is it easily accessible? Or can I simply look into a replacement for it if it is broken?

[Bear]

Pretty straight forward, I have not done a E30 but have done a E32, if you care to Email me lazybears2@cox.net, I will send a text file on how to for door panel removal, or go to:
http://shrubbery.student.utwente.nl/ for good pics and test on how to on a E32 (at least you will get the concept).

[Aksium]

Well seeing as how it is Thanksgiving long weekend up here in Canada I should have plenty of time to tear the door apart and have a look around. I also figured that while I had the whole thing apart I could change all the locks. Is there somewhere online to buy some relatively inexpensive replacement locks for the doors and trunks. I looked at bavauto.com and it looked like everything will be about $200USD with shipping to replace all the locks plus another $100 for the central locking control unit. Any ideas as to other sources for these parts or should I just bite the bullet and shell out the cash?

Thanks for all the input Bear, I really appreciate it.

[Bear]

Check for used at vines or active or zionsville in USA, do not know what their shipping cost is.