Central Locking Issue

[Magpie2009]

My 2001 VRS has recently started having issues with the central locking.

When I unlock the doors with either the key or remote, all doors almost immediately relock - you have to be quick to open the drivers door to get in.

This in itself wouldn't be too bad but it is causing the cars battery to become flat.

I've read through the many threads and initially checked the prime suspects - corrosion of connector in door and wiring between door and A pillar, all initially looks OK. I'll need to dig a bit further.

To try and prevent the battery flattening I've removed the 5A fuse from F6 = central locking control unit.

I thought that this would stop the central locking working altogether but it seems to still work via the remote. Interestingly the doors didn't relock this time.

However there is no control of the locking of doors or opening/shutting of windows from the drivers door control or opening the windows via the individual switches on the other doors.

I'm not sure this is such a good idea when driving the car but will leave the fuse out for now to see if it stops the battery discharging when not in use. I'll pop the fuse back in when driving

I obviously need to find the root cause of the problem but is there a better option than that described above?

[Magpie2009]

Its F38 that I needed to remove for the central locking. This also cuts power to fuel flap and electric mirrors, but doesn't stop the boot lock operation so I removed connector for this as well.

I did this after going out one morning and hearing all the door locks constantly relocking themselves which is what I believed was causing the battery to go flat.

I checked as much of the relevant wiring etc I could but couldn't find any corroded/chaffed wiring, so I left the fuse and connector out and the car started OK. This last week the flat battery problems returned though.

I reckon the battery was the original (nearly 12 yrs old now) so decided that the central locking problems flattening the battery and the recent cold spell had finally knackered it and that now I had two problems - dodgy central locking and duff battery.

A new battery had to be the first step and has now been fitted for a few days.

Might be a bit early to say but the central locking problem has disappeared again - what chance all this being due to the battery actually being on the way out anyway. To be honest I would have thought I'd have problems starting the car before seeing other electrical problems?

[Magpie2009]

Well a few months have gone by and I thought I'd update on this for anyone with similar problems.

Basically the central locking has worked perfectly since fitting a new battery.

So if you're having similar issues and you've checked out the door connector and wiring and your battery is a few years old this could well be the cause.