98 E36 M3 Alarm Door Lock Problem

[George_M3]

I just traded my 5 series in for a 98 E36 M3 sedan last week. I bought it off my mechanic who was selling it for one of his customers. There is a problem with the door locks when arming the system through the remotes. When pressing the arm or disarm button I get 4 or 5 chirps and the doors dont lock. From my research, this means that the car thinks there is a door that is not closed. Could this be a faulty door switch? I can use the key to lock and unlock but both alarm transmitters wont lock the doors and arm the system. Is there any way to test to find out which door it thinks is not closed? Any help would be great, thanks!

[PrInG]

I know the door switches on my E36 or pretty finicky. Its possible your not closing your door hard enough. When you close the door it touches that pin. Which in turn makes your windows go up.. I'd check to see if any of your windows aren't going up that half inch after you shut your door and work from there .. Just as guess, but I'd say it's pretty reasonable.

[CDUFly]

I am having the same problems with my car. I was washing it today and when I finished the key fob wouldn't lock it anymore. It only chirps three times when you press the lock button on the remote. All the doors, hood and trunk are closed - I double and triple checked. Any suggestions? Thanks.

[CDUFly]

On my car, I tested each of the four switches that tell the alarm if the door, trunk or hood is open and the only one that didn't pass was the hood switch (to test - doors: close door and window closes the last 1/4 inch, trunk: open trunk and press switch to see if the trunk light goes out).

I realized that the hood switch itself worked (ie: I depress the switch to make contact) but the hood closing didn't depress the switch all the way. The entire switch had slid 1/4 inch down in the mount so the hood wouldn't activate the switch even when it was closed. So I superglued the switch back into place as high as it would go in the mount and problem solved. Hope this helps.

[garbone]

i wish i had been checking this forum before i could have given you the answer right away. 90 percent of the time its the hood's leaf switch. a little beding and wha la