Drove to a friends house this evening, and when I got home I went to lock the car with the remote...

The interior light turned off as usual, but the clunking noise sounded too quiet. I checked the boot first and it was locked, went to the other doors and they were all unlocked!! Plus the red LED on the drivers door was not flashing, and was not on.

I hopped in the car and turned the ignition on. Then pressed the lock/unlock switch on the drivers door. All I got was the boot locking/unlocking and none of the other doors responding. When I pressed the buttons, I could hear a click from under the drivers side of the dash, which I hadn't noticed before. Sounds like a relay.

I then tried the spare key, with no difference. Then tried the key in the boot lock barrell, and it only locked/unlocked the boot, not all the doors like it would normally (I have no lock barrell on the drivers door). Next I checked the fuses. Looking at a manual I have, fuse 14 (10A) is for central locking. I removed it and it looked fine.

I then did an error code scan, and picked up nothing. Having run out of options I opened and slammed all the doors, and wound all the windows up and down hoping something would jolt it back into life! Nothing. I even went for a drive! Still nothing.

The only way I could lock the car was to push down all the lock pins manually (you have to do the drivers door from inside via the rear passenger door). I then folded down the rear seats and removed the parcel shelf. So I can open the boot in the morning, and climb through to open the doors from the inside using the opening levers.

The deadlocks appear to be deactivated too.

So yeah, please help!! Never had any locking problems before, and everything else works fine. Not sure what else to check......

Not really what I wanted at 1am on a Sunday!

Cheers in advance guys

Maybe its somehow put itself into transport mode, think you need to look at it with vagcom to check it out?

Well I've been through all the fuses today and discovered fuse 38 was blown (15A, Luggage compartment light, central locking, filler cap release). Not sure what luggage compartment light it's on about because the light in the boot was working fine.

I replaced the fuse and everything worked fine again, for a while!

I used the car, parked, and when I opened the drivers door I could hear the fuse blow again (I left the fusebox cover off)! Dammit.

So does anyone know what could be blowing fuse 38? I don't really fancy carrying a bag of fuses around with me forever!!

Well I've been through all the fuses today and discovered fuse 38 was blown (15A, Luggage compartment light, central locking, filler cap release). Not sure what luggage compartment light it's on about because the light in the boot was working fine.

I replaced the fuse and everything worked fine again, for a while!

I used the car, parked, and when I opened the drivers door I could hear the fuse blow again (I left the fusebox cover off)! Dammit.

So does anyone know what could be blowing fuse 38? I don't really fancy carrying a bag of fuses around with me forever!!

I had a problem on another car which might be similair, the fuse controlled more than the one thing, and it was the component shorting, in your case i'd unplug the luggage compartment light (guessing it might be the boot light, if you said it was on even after the fuse was blown i'd look for another light! but unplug it incase the part is shorting on something, if this doesn't do anything then who knows!

Edited 10 October, 201015 yr by Lew_VRS

Fuse 38 feeds the 4 door motors (via the door control units) and the filler cap release motor.

Maybe one of the motors in the door is failing/shorting and drawing more current then the fuse is rated for. Suggest popping off the door trims, and disconnecting one motor at a time, and see if that helps.

I can't see that the filler cap motor should have anything to do with this, as it is not triggered by the central locking. However it is easy enough to disconnect and then you can manually operate the filler cap release from inside the car - well you can on an estate....

I'd tackle it in this order...

Listen to see if you can hear anything at the door locks and filler cap - is a motor failing to shut off.

Manhandle the wiring where it passes through the 'A' / 'B' pillars - see if that blows the fuse.

Try operating the filler cap release a few times.

Use the pushbutton and handle on each door to lock/unlock it.

If none of the above works, then it's likely to be one of the door control units

Edited 10 October, 201015 yr by rwbaldwin

if its blowing as you open the door you may have broken wiring where it runs from the pillar to the door. seen a few now as they get older and higher miles

Possibly the wiring inside one of the doors - the cables are held quite stiffly against various parts of the metalwork in the doors, possibly vibration or window operations have contributed to the wiring wearing through and shorting to the metalwork in the door.

Thanks a lot for all the great replies guys. I think I may have narrowed it down after blowing fuse 38 about 5 times today!!

It's definately associated with the wiring going to the drivers door. I can open the door, swing it in and out a few times (without closing it fully), and I can hear an electrical shorting noise and smell electrical burning from the area under the dashboard where the door wiring goes through. After 4 or 5 swings, the fuse eventually pops. I did the same but just wangled the wiring about going to the door, and couldn't get it to happen, so I presume the wiring needs to be pulled a bit further.

So the next step I guess is to drop the lower dash covers off and see where the door loom goes. Does anyone know where it goes? Guess it goes to a plug somewhere, and maybe the plug has corroded or something.

Can I buy a new drivers door loom? Is there a relay or another fuse under the dash or something? I know very little about auto electrics so feel free to spoon feed me!

All the other drivers door things function (all the switches and buttons on the handle unit). So I presume it's just a couple of wires that are at fault somewhere....

So it looks like you guys are spot on so far! Cheers for the great advice

Thanks a lot for all the great replies guys. I think I may have narrowed it down after blowing fuse 38 about 5 times today!!

It's definately associated with the wiring going to the drivers door. I can open the door, swing it in and out a few times (without closing it fully), and I can hear an electrical shorting noise and smell electrical burning from the area under the dashboard where the door wiring goes through. After 4 or 5 swings, the fuse eventually pops. I did the same but just wangled the wiring about going to the door, and couldn't get it to happen, so I presume the wiring needs to be pulled a bit further.

So the next step I guess is to drop the lower dash covers off and see where the door loom goes. Does anyone know where it goes? Guess it goes to a plug somewhere, and maybe the plug has corroded or something.

Can I buy a new drivers door loom? Is there a relay or another fuse under the dash or something? I know very little about auto electrics so feel free to spoon feed me!

All the other drivers door things function (all the switches and buttons on the handle unit). So I presume it's just a couple of wires that are at fault somewhere....

So it looks like you guys are spot on so far! Cheers for the great advice

Hi again mate, this sounds like a very similar problem than what happens with the peugeot 306 where the wires in the drivers door loom need to be extended/soldered because they snap off from getting brittle and being open and closed constantly (and peugeot engineers cocking up making the wires too short. Start by pulling out the cover where the loom actually goes from outside the car to the drivers door, have a look there to see if you can see any broken wires as a starting point.. this can be difficult to see because there are so many going into the door but can be a start hth

You should be looking at the thick Red/Yellow wire. All five wires (4 doors + filler release) connect together in the loom behind the dash and are fed from Fuse 38, which in turn is fed from Terminal 30. There isn't anything else in the circuit.

FOUND IT!!!!

rwbaldwin you were right, it was the red/yellow wire to blame.

Where the drivers door loom passes through the wing/lower a-pillar area, it has to pass through some holes that have sharp metal edges. The red/yellow wire had been rubbing on the body there, and the sharp edge had cut through the insulation. It was quite obvious once I had pulled it all apart, and you could see the burn marks on the body where it had been shorting. Flipping the loom over I could clearly see the wire had been eaten into. I stuffed a bit of tissue under it (all I had at the time!), and it all works perfectly!

Annoyingly I've run out of electrical tape, and Halfords is closed now, so I'll have to bodge it with some masking tape and a bit of rubber for now.

I'll get some photos up later so everyone can see where this happens. I'll also get a quote on a new loom tomorrow, because I'm not sure if I trust the damaged loom now!

Very poor design from Skoda there. It's pretty obvious that it's going to wear through eventually. I think I'll stick some rubber under it this time, to give it a chance.

We got there in the end! Thanks to everyone who posted.

Here's where it was going to ground (where the black burn mark is on the edge):

Here's where it's located (removed lower dash cover, side panel and bonnet release lever):

This is my bodge (wrapped a bit of rubber around the wiring and taped it in place with masking tape for now, will re-wrap it with electrical tape when I get some):

Todays blown fuses!

It works fine now, so hopefully I won't need a new loom. I'll probably put something over the metal edge to stop it happening again.

A one day problem/diagnose/fix! Not bad! Hopefully this will help anyone else with the same problem.

Glad its sorted, perhaps this should be a sticky for further reference

A bit of garden hose, with a slit cut up the length of it. Cut the hose the same length as the circumference of the hole. Feed the hose onto the edge of the hole and push it round. That'll stop the metal edge from eating any more wires!

You can use grommet strip to protect the edge. If you can't find any, then take a length of 3-core mains cable. Slit it down its length, remove the cores and push it over the edge. If you make sure you don't leave a gap where the ends meet, it will stay in place without glue.