5th Gen door lock actuator hell (1 Viewer)

[300blk]

I have an old 2013 5th Gen which is afflicted with the door lock actuator failures and three out of the four doors now will not open electronically and have to be manually flipped.

I’ve had the repair done once under warranty where were they replaced the driver’s door actuator unit, and once I replaced the front passenger side actuator myself, with the entire OEM unit, which has since failed.

Now I am in a quandary whether or not I should even bother, but assuming I want to I am split whether or not to purchase the entire cheap Chinese actuators on flea Bay or Amazon, but these seem to have dubious quality… Although the OEM was also dubious quality as the units that have been replaced have failed, or should I just purchased cheap radio control car motors and disassemble the actuators and recycle the OEM units currently in my truck.

I foresee this being a multi beer multi day project, and anyone who has done this misery before can chime in. To clarify, I have done this before myself, but I used an OEM unit which I think cost like 150 bucks, at the least, and I have no intention on blowing that kind of money.

To put this into perspective as to how little I want to do this, I replaced the left CV axle on my FJ cruiser instead of tackling this project last weekend.

 

[goldwater58]

I also have a 2013 4Runner that had door lock actuator issues. After I replaced the 1st one, I noticed some signs that another was acting up. At that point I decided to just replace them all. Lol I had it down to about 35-40 minutes per door.

The actuators that I ended up using were the APDTY brand found on Amazon. So far I've had no issues with them. Here's a link to them https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00C8EA86M/ref=ppx_yo_mob_b_inactive_ship_o0_img?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Hopefully that helps.

 

[Jetboy]

Have you considered that it's a bad sensor somewhere causing the locks to cycle over and over when it's locked and it's causing them to fail early? I had that happen with an aftermarket auto-start system on an Acura I owned a long time ago. Kept having issues and after a while I noticed that when it was quiet in the garage I could hear it "click" and try to re-lock the doors over and over. Ripped out the astro-start setup and problems went away.

In the 4R - if you don't have any aftermarket electronics, maybe just turn off the auto lock setting and see if that resolves it. The fact that very few 5th gens I'm aware of have issues with the lock actuators seems to point toward something else causing them to fail.

 

[Acrad]

Actuators Plus has served many well. They sell rebuilt ones with lifetime warranty. Many satisfied customers on various forums. I used one of their replacements on my 460 driver's door. You activate the warranty by sending in your core with pre-paid mailer.

The inexpensive motor replacements are always an option as well.

Security Measure

www.ebay.com

 

[300blk]

Have you considered that it's a bad sensor somewhere causing the locks to cycle over and over when it's locked and it's causing them to fail early? I had that happen with an aftermarket auto-start system on an Acura I owned a long time ago. Kept having issues and after a while I noticed that when it was quiet in the garage I could hear it "click" and try to re-lock the doors over and over. Ripped out the astro-start setup and problems went away.

In the 4R - if you don't have any aftermarket electronics, maybe just turn off the auto lock setting and see if that resolves it. The fact that very few 5th gens I'm aware of have issues with the lock actuators seems to point toward something else causing them to fail.

I have a piece of crap Southeast Toyota security system that seems patched into the door locks and the stock Toyota system, I’m thinking this might be making them cycle over and over again… That’s the only other theory.

 

[300blk]

I will add to this thread in saying that apparently there is a known issue with these where they over applied waterproofing silicone grease to a part in the doors that almost never, ever, ever sees water and in hot environments the silicone can get into the cheap radio controlled car motor and gum it up.