Door locks sometimes randomly lock and unlock while driving !!

[RickUK]

Require some help/advice please,have had my 56 plate X5 3ltr diesel for about a month and really have enjoyed driving it,its been fully serviced and stamped from new.

But one thing that has started happening this last few days is while driving the car sometimes arms and disarms the car door locks at random,this is not one specific door but all of them are triggered at the same time.It happened one day last week and after say 5 minutes it disarmed itself and thought nothing more about it.

Checked the owners handbook and a comment was mentioned about some external radio interference can occasionally trigger the doors etc,but today it happened twice and this evening it happened about 5 times in quick succession which worried me a bit,so can i ask you experienced X5 owner is this sounding like a major expensive problem or is it something simple that i am over looking ??

Isit possible that i have hit a alarm button say on the dash board or another button that may have triggered something or could this actually be a fault.

Hope i have described it so you folks can understand it,no other electrical issues or mechanical problems have started,its just this slight problem of the doors while driving arm and disarm like you are setting the alarm but i will mention that while driving the alarm is armed its just the doors locking and unlocking. 

[Horizon]

Check the wiring / plug between the drivers door and the body.i had an E30 years ago and it used to do  random things with the central locking,turned out to be water ingress in the plug lead between the door and the car, the drivers door module controls a lot of central locking functions.
The plug is there so you can remove the door if needed.
My multiplug was shot, I had to just join some wires with crimp connectors.

[X5-D-Sport]

Horizon's fix sounds very likely..
ALSO
check the centre console switch incase it is knackered & the guts of the switch are flopping about causing door lock to activate.
Normally the doors are NOT allowed to unlock by the computer when driving, so it does sound like dodgy electrical wiring or switches.

[RickUK]

Just a quick update,checked the centre consol switch and sprayed it with some electrical contact cleaner and its not done it since,so looks like that was probably the culprit,of course time will tell but this has only been the only small glitch that i have found.

[Smeeagain]

how did you remove the switch to access the contacts and get the spray on them?

[RickUK]

[quote="Smeeagain"]
how did you remove the switch to access the contacts and get the spray on them?
[/quote]

Did not have a clue on how too take a switch out,that looked a major task,my lad gave me a electrical contact spray with a nozzle thing on,while i was cleaning the inside the car i sprayed all around the switch infact gave it a good spraying,the cleaner seemed to soak around the push switch in the center so i am assuming its possible the spray may have got into the switch.Of course i could well be wrong but that is what i did,its possible its just a coincidence and probably is !! .

[Horizon]

Your lucky it didn't take the shine off your Dashboard

[henrym3]

To remove a switch it's best to get some of those plastic removal tools (less likely to scratch anything)put/wiggle it under switch and pop out. easier to take out the 4 way switch and then get your finger in (doesn't apply to Grumpywurzel)and pop out lock switch, remove plug and spray
PS
no offence Grumpywurzel but it is reported that you have some rather large sausage like fingers

[lezmtaylor]

I did a similar thing, sprayed a starter motor on a fork lift truck, did not leave it time to evaporate , started it up and hey presto up she went, had to use a fire extinguisher to put it out.
Got away with it and lesson learnt.

Lez

[RickUK]

This problem has started up again albeit not all the time,seems to be a pattern that it does it more so in warm weather like we have had this last week or so.Initially thought it was interference from say factories or alarms but its become bloody annoying,it can trigger the central system just once occasionally but then could happen maybe 6-7 times in 30 seconds.

This has been the only trouble that i have with the X5,its not a major problem as such just annoying,would a hook upto one of those diagnostic things give me a better idea and possibly locate the cause of the problem ?? maybe it can be reset or at least give me some idea what is causing this problem.

[Horizon]

If you can get it out, I would unplug the central locking button on the dash, just had a problem with my alarm going off randomly, especially when it was stood in the sun, firstly I turned off the inner sensors, still went off randomly, then disabled the tilt sensor, all by Carly App by the way. Problem went away or I thought until caravaning, went off when the temperature rose to 23 degs. All went quiet until this weekend when it was baking hot, it went off again. Ive disconnected the bonnet / hood alarm sensor. So far so good.

[RickUK]

[quote="Horizon"]
If you can get it out, I would unplug the central locking button on the dash, just had a problem with my alarm going off randomly, especially when it was stood in the sun, firstly I turned off the inner sensors, still went off randomly, then disabled the tilt sensor, all by Carly App by the way. Problem went away or I thought until caravaning, went off when the temperature rose to 23 degs. All went quiet until this weekend when it was baking hot, it went off again. Ive disconnected the bonnet / hood alarm sensor. So far so good.
[/quote]

Many thanks for your reply,did you disconnect the bonnet/hood sensor with the 'Carly App' thingy or some other way,does this cause problems in other areas when you disconnected them ??

Sorry to sound so vague but what  exactly is a 'Carly App' ?? is it one of these plug in diagnostic thingies ??

[X5Sport]

The under bonnet sensor is just a plug to pull.  Black 'push switch' pointed straight up, on the left wing looking in from front

Carly is a fault code reader/coding unit.  Bluetooth or Wireless dongle (plugs into OBD2 port) depending upon Android or IOS and connects to phone/tablet App.  You can also send the downloaded fault logs to them for more info too.

[RickUK]

For some reason this problem has stopped again,i have a suspicion that it maybe the main switch near the gearlever the one that you can manually over ride it all.Tried the switch and it does work exactly as it should do,was wonder if the wife had hit the button by mistake and it has thrown it all out of sequence,but after i have hit the button on/off a dozen or so times theis may have sorted the problem out or cleaned the connacts in the switch.

Not had any problems for a few days so will leave it as it is for the moment,more a vase of trying various things to try and isolate the problem then replace the item that is causing the problem.