Lock Actuator Problems
 

Hello fellow BMW owners. I'm a new member, but a long time BMW owner and am hoping I can get some help with a problem that hasn't been solved yet.
I have an '03 325xi with 81K miles. Until the last 6 months the car has been pretty much flawless. My current problem is my drivers door lock. A few month's ago the remote started to work only intermittently. It finally stopped working (all the other locks are fine) and I had to use the key to unlock the doors. I finally ordered a new lock actuator and muddled my way through the replacement. When finished, it worked twice and that was it. I ordered a new one and swapped them out and low and behold the same thing happened. I'm stumped and no one has an answer. Does anyone have any ideas?
Pretty frustrating. On the plus side the second time went a lot faster than the first.
Thanks in advance.
Gary

How old are the batteries in the key fob/head?

lock actuator - key fob batteries
 

Hey Big Evil, thanks for getting back to me. The batteries may be original, so probably aren't as strong as they should/could be, but since they work to lock the drivers door and unlock all but the drivers door, could that be the problem?

It's possible, however we had a car in our lab (E90) that's doing that as well. It was a reprogramming issue as the door module lost its initialization (Ain't computers great?).

That's interesting. It's certainly worth a try. I guess my only thought is, why did it work once or twice and then stop working.
Thx for your help Big Evil!
Gary

Couldn't tell you. Computer modules sometimes work great the first time but then errors pop up and the blue screen o death hunts you down.

good knowledge guys i like

Any luck yet, Gary? I've got the exact same ride, and same issues. In fact, I just put a new door lock actuator in yesterday and it worked for about 10 minutes and quit. I don't think it's keys/remotes. My inclination from other boards is that it may be a relay in the general control module 5, but I'm not quite ready to ship mine out for repairs yet...

Door lock problems
 

Try changing or fixing the central locking button. I had that problem and it was that part.Easy fix.