UGAdaddy

First of all this site is AWESOME! The Lexus Dealership wanted $1,500 to replace both front door actuators on my 2011 Lexus RX350. With the help of this site and YouTube I was able to knock out this repair in less than 3 hours for both doors and at a cost of $11 per motor and $10 weather striping for a grand total of $32 and 3 hours of my time. I found two videos that describe EXACTLY how to do this repair.

First to remove either front door, watch this video:


This takes about 10 minutes to do. Make sure you have disconnected ALL power clips. The driver door has one extra clip for the seat memory.

Next watch this video of how to take apart the door locking part to access the motor you will be replacing.


This is listed as a Toyota in the video but it is the exact same part in your Lexus. The first one took me about 30 minutes to do but the second one took only about 15 minutes once I got the hang of it.

One trick I will tell you is when you are putting everything back together, make sure you reconnect the rod to the door handle to the door locking part. I forgot to do this the first time and the door handle didn't work and I had to take the door panel back off. Also make sure all your power connection are reconnected. I got excited and a little cocky on the second door and forgot to connect power to the door locking part and it scared the hell out of me till I took the panel off.

My rushing is what cause it to take 3 hours to do. If I would have only had to take the door panels off once and reinstall them both once instead of 5 times for the first door and twice for the second. I bet this job could easily be done in 2 hours.

Here is the link to the motor I bought on Amazon. It is a few dollars less on EBay but I wanted two day shipping through Amazon Prime. It is currently $11.39 each with free two day shipping.


Make sure you get some weather stripping as well. I bought some at Oreileys for $10 but go ahead and order you some from Amazon when you order your motors. Cheaper too at less than $8 with free two day shipping through Prime.


I hope this thread helps. I wanted it to be a one stop shop for this known issue.

m1964

Thanks a lot for the info- I was not aware of the problem but if the motors are sold on e-bay or Amazon usually it means that there is a need for these motors.

GSteg

iTrader: (15)

How time flies! I remember buying these motors for $2/each on ebay for when my GS' door actuator went out.

Still cheap compared to a new actuator.

miky348

Hi,

I have RX-350 (2011), problems started about a week ago on the driver side door lock:

1. Remote locks/unlocks all doors except driver door
2. Inside panel buttons (both open & close) stopped working, the lock is getting stuck (looks like a mechanical problem), i.e. have to manually push/pull (see attached pic)
3. When using remote to lock, the side mirrors flip but the lights (on side mirror) do not flash and no beep sound. But when I unlock (w/remote) the side mirror lights flash and beeps twice

Need Help.

Thanks
Miky

vlad_a

Hi Miky,
Welcome to CL!
This is a very common Toyota problem. Actuator is dead inside the lock mechanism.
You can get a full replacement part for $350. Or find the motor to replace for $6.
Lots of DIY youtube videos on the topic. If not for RX350, then for Highlander.

bsommerman

This is a great post ! 4 days after my 2014 RX350's warranty ended, the passenger door lock died. I called the Lexus dealership, and they sent me to their corporate office. They forced me to get an estimate at the dealership (which they tried to charge me $150 just to inspect it), and ended up denying my request for covering this under warranty. They quoted me $600. No thanks !

I took the plunge, tried this myself and got it working :-). Here are some tips for other do-it-yourselfers.

The below videos will help with installation of the actuator:
1. To remove the rod that connects the door handle to the lock actuator, you can do one of two methods. First one is to just slide the actuator off the bottom of the rod, and re-install by inserting the bottom of the rod into the new actuator's latch. This is what I used, and it was easy. See time 8:53 in the attached video:

2. Or, you can remove a plastic cover/cap at the top of this rod, remove the top of the rod from door handle (bit of a struggle), and remove the actuator with this rod attached. See time 6:01 in the below video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8km...ature=youtu.be

3. If working on the driver side, you will have to ensure the manual key lock on the handle is inserted properly in the new actuator. See time 11:36 in this same video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8km...ature=youtu.be

4. To remove the actuator, you will have to remove a lag bolt that holds the window assembly, which is in the way. See pic below.

I actually bought an off-brand passenger door lock actuator on Amazon, which does speed up this installation quite a bit by not having to repair the old one with a new motor. The below one cost me $62 and so far so good. It looks like an exact match, just not the OEM brand Aisin.




Lock actuator is the black box at top right. Sliding the actuator down once Torx T30 bolts are removed will detach it from the rod on top left (green mark).

TheSnowman

WOW, this forum constantly amazes me, any problem I have, someone has usually had it previously. So, my wife found out that the 2010 RX-350, Japan build in Australia, was not locking the driver's door, even though all the other doors locked and the mirrors folded in.

Now isn't that a trap for the unwary? I mean, who is going to check that from time to time? And it's nearly impossible as you have to move the key fob 10 meters or more away before checking? Here down under, the police do checks of cars being locked in the bigger shopping centers parking; they leave flyer type information sheets everywhere. Now imagine if they came across this, blame the driver for not locking and they have no idea. As I said, WOW. And no wonder the opportunistic thieves check those door handles!

My question is, can it be as simple as only change the motor? Or would there possibly be other causes, I don't know, the linkage or something?

Not sure if I can attempt this by myself, I need to check with dealer to see what they are asking? Any other Aussies reading this, any experience with this problem? We have Amazon here down under now, so maybe a chance for me to try that out.

Also getting a new windscreen or windshield today and full set of tires later this week, so it is all happening!

TheSnowman

UPDATE: to previous post, our regular dealer says AUD $466.49 and have to replace the whole actuator, so very interesting. might check around for other mechanics that may be able to do this kind of work

ldfog

Great Post!! The only thing I would add is that I would STRONGLY suggest that before you button everything up and replace the door panel that you check to make sure it locks and unlocks with the button and your key fob. Once you have the panel on and close the door, you would almost have to destroy the door panel to get to the actuator. I might even drive around for a few days without the panel to make sure nothing shakes loose.

I replaced all 4 of the motors in the actuators of my '01 RX300. The first one took me the longest. The last one took about 45 minutes. I also found it was sometimes easier to remove the door handle itself when replacing the actuator--it gave me a bit more room to put it in and get it lined up.

nhuto

Hi everyone,

We have a 2014 RX350 that we bought brand new in March 2014. In November 2016 at about 28k miles both front door actuators start to fail. Then a few months later March 2017 the right rear door actuator went out, then followed by the left rear door in August 2017, then December 2017 the driver door went out again and then March 2018 the front passenger went out again. So a total of 6 repairs at the dealer. Now the front passenger and the right rear are acting up again. The car is 5 years old and 66k miles. Wear and tear is part of life, everything breaks down eventually but I never expect to spend money on a premium product to have stuff constantly breaking down prematurely. Everything was fixed under warranty and we live about 30 minutes from the dealer but it’s a pain in the behind to have to keep bringing the car to the dealer.

RX in NC

I assume that your door lock actuators are primarily made of plastic. If so, that plastic degrades far more quickly than metal does and begins causing problems even within the warranty period. In my opinion, all door lock actuators (especially their internal gear wheels) should be metal, not plastic. The manufacturers are all looking for components in which they can save a few pennies and their incessant cost-cutting is sacrificing product quality and durability. I do not believe that my wife's 2015 RX350 possesses anything close to the build-quality that her previous 2004 RX330 had.

My 2005 Jaguar S-Type sedan had plastic door lock actuators. While I was fortunate enough during my nearly ten years of ownership to never have a problem with them, my Jaguar forum buddy (who still has an identical 2005 Jaguar S-Type) has battled failing door lock actuators for years.

Non

This is very unusual I think, for the problem to repeat so much.

Did the dealer install OEM parts? Or did they repair them?

I think it's possible that your car got the actuators from a bad batch installed in the factory. This happens.

I would try to make sure (If possible) that the parts the dealer installs are brand new and genuine OEM, because the cheap Chinese knock-offs are known to fail prematurely.

nhuto

Thank you RX in NC for the reply,

I apologize for going on a rant on my very first post here. It's so frustrating that at only 66k miles, 1 owner and we have to deal with this issue half a dozen times. Our friend's 2014 Lexus GX460 also have both driver and front passenger door actuators failing. I wanted to get a new GX after we paid off this car, but I'm so afraid of getting another Lexus. Now it all makes sense, when we were finalizing our deal we declined the finance manager offer on Lexus Extended Warranty, he told us that people trust Lexus reliability much more than Lexus trusts itself.

nhuto

Hi Non,

I also thought about the idea of a bad batch of actuators from the factory, but my driver and passenger doors have been replaced twice! Two times for driver and passenger, once of each rear door, a total of 6 times. Currently front passenger does not unlock and right rear does not lock. We even started blaming ourselves, we tried hard to think if we had done anything wrong on our part....

I have no idea if the dealer used OEM actuators or not, all 6 repair/replacements were done under warranty.

GoHuskers

This is a known issues for Toyota and Lexus and it's not cheap to fix since you can only buy the new unit as a whole assembly.

Do you happen to live in high humidity area and maybe close to the coast?