kravula

Folks-
I am a Newbie here, and just got registered. My wife drives a 1999 Lexus RX300 (about 62K miles on it as of today).
The problem we are having is, the driver side door will not lock with the key remote. In additon, if I manually hit the 'door lock' button on the door panel on the driver side, all the doors except the driver side door will lock. I have to manually push the driver side door lock 'slider' into the lock position for the driver side to lock. if I want to lock all doors while we are inside the car driving.

It is the same problem unlocking the doors with the key remotely, all the doors will unlock except the driver side, and I have to actually open the driver side door manually with the key inserted into the door.

When I took the car in for an oil change, I mentioned the problem to the service engineer, and he diagnosed it to be a "door actuator" problem and said, it would cost about 500 dollars to replace the door actuator.

Does anyone know if this is a job I can do myself, if I buy the part from an OEM? Also, can someone recommend a place to buy it, part number and other such specific information, and an approximate cost if you are in the know? I live in Charlotte, NC

Sincerely appreciate your help.

If you wish to email me directly, I am available at krishna.ravula@duke.edu.

Krishna Ravula.

Lil4X

After a few minutes searching the RX archives, it seems yours is a rare problem. In the past 3 years, I could find only two reports of similar problems and in both cases the dealer suspected the door lock actuator. Both cases were quoted a similar price to repair - the largest part of the total bill was likely labor.

Check with one of our sponsors in your area (see home page, "Sponsors") for a discounted deal on the necessary part. Meanwhile, you might try the "Advanced Search" engine at the top of the page (I entered "door" "lock" and limited the search to the RX forums - and got three pages of responses).

Removing the door panel seems to be fairly simple, but without knowing the proper procedure it can be daunting. The panel is secured by a series of plastic clips, but the trick is to release them without breaking them. Maybe some of our members who have changed speakers, etc. can give us the benefit of their experience . . . ?? With 30,000 members and a like number of drop-ins, surely someone out there has had a similar experience with replacing a driver's door lock module!

Best of luck, and again, welcome to CL!