Sluggish electric door locks 96 OBW

[Ed P]

The electric door locks on my '96 Legacy OBW have become sluggish.
Whether operated by remote control or the driver's door master lock
switch, some of the doors don't lock or unlock reliably. Repeated
activation often causes every door lock to eventually work. Has anyone
had experience with this problem? Is this likely a lock mechanism
lubrication issue or failing actuators? The car now has about 75k miles.

Ed P

 

[mac]

My 91 is a horror. My wife refuses to ride in it because she's been trapped
by the locks engaging when she tries to open the door. I had one lock
changed on the driver front, but at a cost of $400.

Subaru need to get their tails sued off for faulty door locks. and i'm
surprised it hasn't happened yet.

it seems they hve a couple springs in the actuator and one spring weakens
and lets the "lock" spring override it.

This is the only thing that really irks me about my Subie.

 

[MIKE]

I've had both problems mentioned above and they are both different. The
orininal post was abour electic locks not functioning properly, this happent
to me soon after I got my alarm installed which had remote central locking.
To fix this I simply removed the inside door pannels and sprayed some CRC on
the offending locking mechanisms and then used the drivers lock a few times
untill they all worked properly.

The problem Mac rased occures when a little plastic tab that holdes the
tension on the door lock torsion spring breaks. The door lock mechanism
feels soft. The lock is designed ( for safety reasons I assume) to lock if
the lock is not fully unlocked when the door lever is pulled.(this stops
"children" falling out of cars when they are playing with the lock) The
problem is when this tab breakes the lock never fully unlocks and hence
every time you go to open the door it locks on you. (how may time can you
put the word 'lock' in one paragraph? .

anyway to fix it all you have to do is make a replacement tab for the
spring. Or use a bit of string and tie it around the hook at the end of the
torsion spring and tie the other end of the string to something in the door.
I did this about 2 years ago when I was in a rush to get a Warrent of
Fitness for the car and the string is still going strong today and it didn't
cost anywhere near $400

Cheers
Mike

 

[Paul]

Thanks Mike, I have the exact same problem as Mac. I had a look at the
mechanism and came to the same conclusion as you. I did not get around to
Macgyvering a fix though.

I'll try it out today.

Cheers,
Paul.

 

[mac]

I'll have to look into what you suggest. Thanks!

I've had both problems mentioned above and they are both different. The
orininal post was abour electic locks not functioning properly, this happent
to me soon after I got my alarm installed which had remote central locking.
To fix this I simply removed the inside door pannels and sprayed some CRC on
the offending locking mechanisms and then used the drivers lock a few times
untill they all worked properly.

The problem Mac rased occures when a little plastic tab that holdes the
tension on the door lock torsion spring breaks. The door lock mechanism
feels soft. The lock is designed ( for safety reasons I assume) to lock if
the lock is not fully unlocked when the door lever is pulled.(this stops
"children" falling out of cars when they are playing with the lock) The
problem is when this tab breakes the lock never fully unlocks and hence
every time you go to open the door it locks on you. (how may time can you
put the word 'lock' in one paragraph? .

anyway to fix it all you have to do is make a replacement tab for the
spring. Or use a bit of string and tie it around the hook at the end of the
torsion spring and tie the other end of the string to something in the door.
I did this about 2 years ago when I was in a rush to get a Warrent of
Fitness for the car and the string is still going strong today and it didn't
cost anywhere near $400

Cheers
Mike