My doors will not lock

Asked by Tim Jan 13, 2018 at 03:20 PM about the 2013 Dodge Grand Caravan SE FWD

Question type: Maintenance & Repair

My doors only unlock, they will  not lock. I tried key and door controls and
neither work. I am confused? I changed all fuses related to locking system and
nothing.

2 Answers

70

When I locked my doors with the door button or key remote, in a few seconds, they unlocked and the lights came on. No matter what I did, the door wouldn't stay locked. My gut told me it was a problem with the key remote, as it had been acting up. So I took the remote off the keychain to see if I could get inside and maybe change the battery. I couldn't do it, so I threw my key on the floor a couple of times. That must have reset whatever it was doing, because then my doors locked and didn't unlock automatically a few seconds later. I have since driven my vehicle and locked and unlocked the doors with no further problems.

7 people found this helpful.
40

It's the key fob. After these fobs get a fairly amount of good use they seem to mess with all of it's controls. Easily temporary fix for this issue for me has been (1) KrazyGlue, (2) Tweezers, (3) Rubbing Alcohol, (4) Toothbrush, (5) a well lit place i.e (work bench); First open up the fob as if you were going to change the battery. Remove the battery from the board, remove the board and the rubber key pad from the top half of the fob housing "very carefully" not to separate the board from the rubber key pad. Now as slow as you can carefully separate the board from the rubber key pad and you should see a few silver colored small rounded contact plates lose and out of place. Carefully separate these plates and clean them with rubbing alcohol then place them aside for a moment. Now brush off all the nasty grime the housing and rubber key pad has accumulated over the years use dish soap and water if needed. DO NOT USE rubbing alcohol on the top side of the rubber key pad with the images. DO NOT submerge the board in any fluid what so ever simply dry brush carefully and remove any grime. If needed used a QTip and small amount of rubbing alcohol to clean the contact points on the board. Let it all dry out for a few minutes if needed. This part takes an orchestrated attempt because of the speed Krazy Glue dries you'll have to glue each silver contact one by one. In the inside of the rubber pad you'll see a central point where you'll place a very small amount of Krazy Glue and with your tweezers you'll line up the center of the belly side of the silver contact plate to it then let it dry. Repeat the same process with each contact plate. After your done and you are confident it's all dried proceed with assembling. It's a hell of a lot easier to buy a new housing at an auto parts store lol.

4 people found this helpful.

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