I had the normal symptoms of a door lock actuator gone bad (many threads on this) so I went about investigating this issue over the weekend. I was hoping I could find something that could be remedied by a little bit of cleaning / maintenance, but that wasn't the case.
Removal of the door trim wasn't bad, but getting the door lock assembly out was a bit of a pain (kept getting my arm hair stuck in the tar-like adhesive for the plastic sheeting). Once I got the lock assembly out, I detached the actuator (held on by 3 screws). The actuator itself is not a solenoid as some other threads state. I popped off the cover.....it is actually a small DC motor.
Actuator:
Actuator exploded:
I plugged in the actuator (without the cover and not attached to the lock assembly) to the electrical connector and operated the door lock switch. I could see the motor spinning strongly the first few presses of the switch, but then it would slowly die down. I tried cleaning all the contacts / moving parts, but nothing improved. Since I realized I had to replace the motor, I decided to take it apart and investigate. I immediately saw that the graphite brushes were almost completely disintegrated....not sure if this was the only problem.
So, in an ideal world I could just replace this little $8 hobby motor. The really unfortunate thing is that not even the actuator itself is sold by itself. I tried every avenue for parts searching and can only find the actuator sold with the entire lock assembly (lock mechanism, cables, actuator). This is really annoying since the actuator is a separate component and bolts (screws) on to the assembly. I didn't want to go the junk yard route since who knows how long the used actuator would last.
So I did find the lock assembly cheapest on CruiserParts.net for $169. I called my Lexus dealership to get a price on the assembly just for my own edification. They sell the assembly for $330 and would probably charge $500 total for them to do the job.
A few cents worth of graphite in the brushes of a motor results in a potential $500 repair.
If anyone ever finds a way of just buying the actuator and not the whole assembly, I would love to hear how you did it.
Removal of the door trim wasn't bad, but getting the door lock assembly out was a bit of a pain (kept getting my arm hair stuck in the tar-like adhesive for the plastic sheeting). Once I got the lock assembly out, I detached the actuator (held on by 3 screws). The actuator itself is not a solenoid as some other threads state. I popped off the cover.....it is actually a small DC motor.
Actuator:
Actuator exploded:
I plugged in the actuator (without the cover and not attached to the lock assembly) to the electrical connector and operated the door lock switch. I could see the motor spinning strongly the first few presses of the switch, but then it would slowly die down. I tried cleaning all the contacts / moving parts, but nothing improved. Since I realized I had to replace the motor, I decided to take it apart and investigate. I immediately saw that the graphite brushes were almost completely disintegrated....not sure if this was the only problem.
So, in an ideal world I could just replace this little $8 hobby motor. The really unfortunate thing is that not even the actuator itself is sold by itself. I tried every avenue for parts searching and can only find the actuator sold with the entire lock assembly (lock mechanism, cables, actuator). This is really annoying since the actuator is a separate component and bolts (screws) on to the assembly. I didn't want to go the junk yard route since who knows how long the used actuator would last.
So I did find the lock assembly cheapest on CruiserParts.net for $169. I called my Lexus dealership to get a price on the assembly just for my own edification. They sell the assembly for $330 and would probably charge $500 total for them to do the job.
A few cents worth of graphite in the brushes of a motor results in a potential $500 repair.
If anyone ever finds a way of just buying the actuator and not the whole assembly, I would love to hear how you did it.