E30 Zone

central locking not working .............sometimes works sometimes doesnt ............... just as i needed it work today as my wife went ino labour this morning and had a beautiful baby boy ..................... but couldnt take her to hospital in my car .............

Was wonmdering if i could just disconnect a wire to totally disarm the central locking and just use it to open the doors by key or by hand .......... pictures of the units and wires would be helpful as need t go pick son up tomorrow in my car but need doors to open first ..............

thanks bigred

Do a search for RED/BLACK and autor Mr Mooore in the tech section, as there is a simple mod, most of us have done, to combat this problem.Should take all of 15 to 20 mins to complete.Then it should work as normal.

Door locks should still work with the key, whether or not the central locking is working, UNLESS the locking ECU has become waterlogged and set the deadlocks before burning them out.
Try lifting the handle on the driver's side while you turn the key.
Chances are though, that the red/black wire modification will cure your problems.
Search for "red AND black" and my username, but go for an older post, as most of the recent ones are just saying "search for 'red AND black'.

I had that problem of intermittent central locking although not the impossible to open the door with the key part. having read about the issue of red/black wiring i unpluged and found everything pretty hunky doorie. I plugged the socket back in and the central locking is working as it was designed. I thought unplug and plug in a few times to shine up the pins and sprayed the socket with silicon grease...it seems I've been able to catch this issue early enough. I quite like this KISS e30 maintenance.

congrats on the kid.

Brianmoooore wrote:Door locks should still work with the key, whether or not the central locking is working, UNLESS the locking ECU has become waterlogged and set the deadlocks before burning them out.
Try lifting the handle on the driver's side while you turn the key.
Chances are though, that the red/black wire modification will cure your problems.
Search for "red AND black" and my username, but go for an older post, as most of the recent ones are just saying "search for 'red AND black'.

About time you wrote an article for the Zone Wiki, Brian.

djezd wrote: I plugged the socket back in and the central locking is working as it was designed. I thought unplug and plug in a few times to shine up the pins and sprayed the socket with silicon grease...it seems I've been able to catch this issue early enough.

Do the modification anyway!! It's preventative maintenance.
Removing the permanently live power from the connector will greatly reduce the chances of the other pins corroding.

this didnt work for me

bigredbmw wrote:this didnt work for me

It's not the only thing that can go wrong with the locking - just the most common.
Second most common is flooding of the locking ECU.

is there any chance someone could ring me and give me advice on this .....................al ring the person back if need be its just i have a 4 day old baby and am findin it difficult t get him in n out of the car lol cheers my number is 07873862796 name is paul ........thanks bigred