Summary of the problem: MY '00 and the driver's side door lock won't work with keyless entry. To be specific, the car receives the signal (car lights up) and tries to unlock the driver side door, (you can hear the mechanism try to unlock the door,) but there doesn't seem to be enough 'umph' to unlock it. Now, if I hit the key fob twice, the passenger door will unlock fine. Same is true when remotely locking the car, the passenger door will lock fine on the second click, but the driver's side doesn't. The problem has been progressing over a couple months to where the door lock doesn't budge anymore.

I've been reading the service manual (00 to 03) and I think the Driver's Side Door Lock Actuator has gone bad so I want to test it. I noticed the warning to not hook up power for test for a long period of time, but i'm struggling to find what source of power I should use. I noticed on most of the tests for the keyless dork lock control unit state the reading should be under 1V so I'm hesitant about testing the actuator with a 9V battery. I'm wondering how I should go about this test.

Assuming the unit is shot, it looks like the part I need is:

27662 026 ACTUATOR ASSY., L. FR. DOOR LOCK

from hondaautomotiveparts

How am i doing so far?

 

Has the door panel ever come off?
Replace the door speakers?

I'm wondering if actuator parts/rods are binding due to inproper reinstallation of the door panel.

I'd get the door panel off and try to see what is going on.

 

Yeah I'll check that on the way. Speakers were replaced years ago, nothing since then I'll check the car battery as well, it's the sluggish and deteriorating performance of the mechanism that are leading me to believe the actuator is dying.

 

You can test the door lock actuator with 12v (car battery or cut the cord off a cig lighter cable). Chances are a 9v battery won't have enough current to operate the mechanism.

The manual says to measure 1v because normally BOTH sides of the actuator have +12v all the time. To lock or unlock, the keyless entry module switches ground to ONE of the actuator wires, so it makes sense to measure the ground (which should be less than 1 volt) to make sure the keyless module is working.

If you disconnect the connector from the actuator and jumper the actuator wires to a 12v source you should be able to make the actuator operate. If you reverse the wires the actuator should go the other way. Chances are the actuator draws a decent amount of current - maybe an amp or two or three (hence why a 9v battery probably won't do it).

You should also try to move the actuator rod by hand to see if it's binding on something. Like Cubs2k mentioned something could have gotten bent when the door panels were taken off.

Just a note - both the passenger and driver actuators have one wire in common - the side of the actuator that is switched to ground to make both doors lock.

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You might want to try lubricating the actuator too.

 

Thanks for all the replies. I'll bring my multimeter along and see how many amps it pulls. Testing it all this weekend and I'll post all the results.

 

This is notes for other people, you can close the thread after this.

The actuator was dead, the solenoid was no good. The above listed part is correct for the driver's side. After removing the driver's side door panel i was able to remove enough of the plastic cover to take off a couple parts to remove the actuator. You don't need to follow sections 2-5, 2-6 of the service manual; the actuator is held on by only 2 screws and 2 plactic covers (that are removed by 1 screw ea.) The tricky part is getting the new actuator on. Have a friend put the key in the outside door lock, turn, and hold it so the moving plastic piece of the door lock swings to the outside of the car. This makes getting the new actuator in 5x easier since you have to wedge it in.

2hr job if when you get a feel for it. You can fit your head inside the door so it's pretty easy to see what's going on. Takes 20min to clean off the goopy plastic adhesive that gets on your arms and shirt. :-/