4 long years of waiting !! Doors not popping

[AJV8]

After four long years of waiting and daily regret of selling my last chimaera I'm finally going to pick up my new Chimaera 450 today from Torquay. Going to be a bit of a drive back from London and it's looking like it's going to be in the dark, but I'm sure all will be fine.

Got an absolute steal on the car and it does need a little bit of TLC but not a great deal. Carpets need doing and dash replacing. At some point it's going to need a blow over as the laquer is starting to peel on the bonnet but from a meter away it looks absolutely fine so I'm not in too much of a rush. Mechanically and structurally it's spot on.

My only main issue is going to be the doors. When I went to test drive it the drivers door wasn't popping open but the passengers door was. After looking through the paperwork with the chap and then going back out to look at the car again the passenger door also stopped popping open so the "secret" way in was required.

When pressing the button it sounds like the solenoid is making a noise but it just isn't popping the door. Same on both sides. The car hasn't been used much over the last year or so so is this likely to just require a job lot of wd40 on the solenoids in an attempt to loosen them off, or is it new solenoid time ? I need to resolve pretty quickly (well, straight away) as I have a meeting with 2 clients tomorrow and could do without taking the roof off to get in when it's due to be raining !!

Any help greatly appreciated and it's good to be back - at least it will be when the week's wait to pick her up is over later on !! Whoop !!

AJ

[ClassiChimi]

Most likely a sticky solenoid. Lift the flap up behind the door to reveal it, I actuated it by hand a number of times on mine and it worked for sometime afterwards but it's playing up again!





You'll notice to the right of the pic a connector with an orange wire,, if you slide your hand up behind the flap you should feel the wiring coming out the top of the solenoid, trace back to that connector, I also pulled the connector apart and gave it some WD40 etc.

Edited by ClassiChimi on Thursday 18th August 08:02

[QBee]

Email sent.

Sounds to me like the door catches need lubrucating, if you can hear the solenoids. Possibly adjusting slightly.

[AJV8]

Cheers guys. Will try cleaning all up and manually moving to free things up a bit. I have a feeling that will work.

QBee, ha, I'll give that a try if not !!

[ClassiChimi]

If the door has dropped( unlikely) or the catch mounted on the door has dropped ( likely) and it's pushing down on the lock as it closes then it can cause the motor to not have enough force to open again, just a thought.

[pb450]

I've had the same thing on my passenger door. Strangely it works when everything is cold but if the car's left in the sun for too long it stops operating. A lifted carpet flap, (as previously mentioned) indicates that it operates but without sufficient oomph to pop the door.

Strong advice was to replace with a decent unit, not a cheap Chinese version at half the price. So at an offer price of £18.50 from Racetech it's not going to break the bank. (Mind you, carriage charges are another matter!)

Further advice was to release the entire door catch mechanism from the car, via said carpet flap to change the solenoid, rather than trying to do it in place - which is a real faff! I haven't done it yet as summer will fade and the existing solenoid will work again soon enough!

Driver's side as well is a bit more serious as the 'secret method' isn't something you want to be doing on a regular basis.

[AV8]

Also check the button in the sill, it's not just for the interior light, its also connected through the locking module. Give the contacts a clean up and try again before you order anything.

[AJV8]

My thoughts exactly, not keen on using that method other than in case of emergency.

As the passenger side was working when we arrived and apparently the drivers side also a couple of weeks ago when taken out of storage it fills me with a bit of hope that it's nothing too serious. It was a warm day when we picked it up and it had been sat in the sun so perhaps that had something to do with it.

Will try the easy fixes first on return home then start thinking about changing solenoids etc afterward.

Thanks for the help guys !

AJ

[ClassiChimi]

That's interesting as my cars parked predominantly with the sun on the n/s and that's the one playing up,,
Drivers side you'd expect to work as its used more and as we know using these cars keeps them happy.

[Steve_D]

Don't discount the possibility that it is simply the battery a bit low particularly if the car has not been used much.

Steve