I purchased a 99 Range Rover 4.0 SE in February and everything has been fine. Recently the door locks have gone crazy. They lock and unlock randomly on their own with no specific intervals. While its parked, driving, key in or out, superlocked, or unlocked it doesnt matter. One time it did this so much it drained the battery. Also the drivers door only is extremely difficult to open. about 30 pounds of pull needs to be applied to the handle before the door opens. The door unlatches fine from the inside and lock is working with the others.

Any ideas? This problem is very irritating at this point and i cant have the confidence to be sure the car stays locked in public.

 

There might be interference affecting the RF receiver, causing it to lock and unlock. Land Rover and all of their brilliant ideas, decided to make the frequency that the vehicle's alarm system uses for the key fob, one that is very susceptible to interference. When the vehicle's RF receiver picks up interference, it can drain the battery, cause the alarm to go off, and in some cases will actually lock and unlock your vehicle. First thing I would do, is to disconnect your aerial antenna. It is located in the trunk on the passenger side. You will have to take off the top plastic cover on the side.
The door handle probably just needs some lubrication, it is fairly common problem. I usually use a prying force with my thumb against the keyhole and the rest of my hand to pull the latch, rather than yank on it. It takes considerably less effort, and it doesn't feel like you are going to rip the door off .

 

Sounds like a plan I will chheck it out as soon as I have time.

Thanks

 

LRScott is right about the exterior door handles sticking. Some lithium grease will help but it mainly comes down to the handles design.

 

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I took apart the door and greased the handle and it works great, just like the passenger side now. I took the cover off the antenna but couldn't figure out how to unplug it. Does it push and pull off or twist ir unscrew? I tried a bunch of different ways and could not get it unplugged.

 

Wednesday morning all of a sudden the cars alarm would go off when I unlocked the door and disabled the ignition. The alarm stayed going whenever a door was open. It stayed like this for 4 hours. Suspecting key or computer problems I saved myself frustration and had it towed to the dealer. They ran tests and said the key and computer were fine ect. The problem they said was in the door locks, specifically the drivers. They advised changing both in unison. They got back to me after hours so he didn't have a final estimate. I'll know tomorrow. Common sense tells me to just change whats broken and see if the passengers side acts up. Common sense also tells me to change them both because the dealer is a really long way away and is difficult to get to.

 

I very much doubt this is RF interference. While I don't expect *much* encryption on that link, mere presence of a carrier certainly shouldn't be enough to unlock the doors.

This is almost certainly a bad connection, an intermittent short, probably, likely in the driver-door switch, though possible in the fascia switch.

That said, I seem to remember hearing someone say there might be a wire in the passenger kick panel related to either the locks or the alarm, for aftermarket additions, that all you had to do was ground it; if that came uninsulated, it could be an issue as well.

 

Beware! We had this same crazy lock problem and had been meaning to get it fixed. Then I went to unlock after a run and the alarm went off and disabled the engine. We tried everything as did our local mechanic with no luck. Ended up at the dealer to replace the lock system controller (not sure of specific part #/description but can find out) and replace the chip in the key. Major PITA as our dealer is 4 hrs away! Spendy but don't wait to fix this.

 

jfhwyom, if you don't mind, how much did you pay for the lock controller?

I have issues where the key fobs don't work at all to unlock the vehicle. YOu must turn the key in the door handle and that only unlocks the drivers door. To unlock the rest of the doors and the hatch you must pull up on the passengers side interior lock lever.

YOu can lock the entire vehicle by using the key in the drivers door handle though. I'm guessing lock controller is shot, any other suggestions?