This message stems from me popping to get something from my car at lunchtime at work last week, only to find ALL of my windows completely wound down/open. Fortunately it was a dry day. Until the problem gets sorted I am obviously reluctant to leave the car for any length of time apart from at home or work in case it happens again and the car is "broken in to".

I seem to have the same prob as leeVRS0252. For the last few months various electrical problems have started to occur on my car - Interior light does not operate when drivers door is opened, drivers mirror does not work, warning sound does not operate when lights left on and drivers door opened with ignition off, remote central locking does not operate on drivers door but all others ok, electric windows only operate when they want to.

I took the car to a garage today where they run some elecrical diagnostics on it. Basically they said water had got into the drivers door and corroded some electrical components. They said the window motor & central locking motor needed to be replaced as a start and then see if the other problems were still there. They have seen this problem a few times before on the Passat and it cost in the region of £500 to fix. They quoted me £141 for the window motor and £81 for the central locking PLUS labour.:(

Does this sound reasonable ???

Any help/advice would be very much appreciated.

it sounds like corroded connections on the central convenience unit which is mounted inside the drivers door on the Octy. Take the trim off and try cleaning up the connections. It might also be that the unit is faulty, and a replacement unit is a few hundred quid I think. I don;t think that you would need to replace the window motor or central locking (although there are some cases when poor soldering causes a microswitch to fail to work, but that means the door looks and then unlocks immediately....)

The passat, I believe does not have the central convenience unit in the drivers door, but inside the main body of the car.... proceed with caution as the garage might be lacking with the truth!

(although there are some cases when poor soldering causes a microswitch to fail to work, but that means the door looks and then unlocks immediately....)

I have that problem on my rear left door!!!... how can i correct this, they're charging me US$150 to fix it on a local VW shop. i prefered to manually lock the door it's cheaper...

I took the car to a garage today where they run some elecrical diagnostics on it. Basically they said water had got into the drivers door and corroded some electrical components. They said the window motor & central locking motor needed to be replaced as a start and then see if the other problems were still there. They have seen this problem a few times before on the Passat and it cost in the region of £500 to fix. They quoted me £141 for the window motor and £81 for the central locking PLUS labour.:(

Does this sound reasonable ???

Any help/advice would be very much appreciated.

The window motor is combined with the door control unit, it has a large electrical plug on it, into which water can ingress. What happens is that the pins corrode and eventually break on the door control unit. If the plug is excessively corroded they may have to replace the drivers door loom as well, this is arond £50. It is possible that the door control unit is failing to pass on the door open signal from the door catch (the £81 part).

The convenience unit on the Octavia I is mounted on the underside of the dash, roughly behind the main light switch.

The door control units have come down in price, they used to around £220.

The window motor is combined with the door control unit, it has a large electrical plug on it, into which water can ingress. What happens is that the pins corrode and eventually break on the door control unit. If the plug is excessively corroded they may have to replace the drivers door loom as well, this is arond £50. It is possible that the door control unit is failing to pass on the door open signal from the door catch (the £81 part).

The convenience unit on the Octavia I is mounted on the underside of the dash, roughly behind the main light switch.

The door control units have come down in price, they used to around £220.

Thanks fordfan. I'm getting confused now with talk of convenience units & door control units - what is the difference.

Also, there seems to be a difference of opinion as to where the convenience unit is located - in the door or behind the dash. Or have i missed something.

The garage has quoted me for replacing the central locking & wiper motor - are you saying that this is the door control unit - the price ties in with what you have undicated £220.

Each door has a control unit that has the electric window motor built into it. The door control unit (DCU) as the name implies controls the electrical functions within that particular door. Say from the drivers door, you want to operate the passenger window, instead of having wires going directly from the switch in the drivers door panel to the passenger window motor, the DCU will take this command and pass it via the CAN bus (see here http://briskoda.net/forums/technical-guides/can-bus-brief-guide/104433/), (I think) to the convenience unit under the dash then to the passenger DCU and the window motor. This has the advantage of saving on the amount of wires that need to go into the door.

The convenience unit (definately located in the dash area) is a little 'black' box and is in overall charge of the door locks, windows, mirrors, interior lights and sun roof. Depending on its coding you can get it to do things like global unlock on the first press of the key fob, lock the doors at 10mph, unlock the doors when the keys are removed from the ignition and flash the indicators and chirp the horn when locking/unlocking the car.

Corrosion in the DCU plug can play havoc giving 'open me' signals to the windows and not passing signals onto the door locks.

The problem still remains - is it a prob with the door control unit or the convenience unit or both? :confused: Not forgetting that I am getting probs with interior light , wing mirror etc.

It's a question of do i have enough trust in the garage to believe what they are telling me. They've already told me that I need a new window motor & central locking motor/mechanism - the last thing I want is to pay for the replacement of these only to find out that it's really the convenience unit that is giving the problems.

More than likely its a problem with the connector on the window winder motor (or door controller as you call it). I had to replace mine recently (part cost 350 euros) as I had problems with locking and the signal from the door switch wasn't getting through to the dash so I was getting out of the car leaving lights on a bit as the buzzer wasn't working! The connector was badly corroded and about 6 pins had rotted away completely. Most of my problems were cured by replacing the motor although I still have to lock the drivers door with the key. I'd say my remaining problem is with the loom as a scan with VAG-COM is still showing a signal fault in the door electrics but I'm not going to change it at the moment (took me about 3 hours to replace the motor!). Try opening the connector and cleaning with WD40 and a toothbrush - you may be lucky that it is just minor corrosion.

BR

Ronan

I would say that the problem will be down to corrosion on the door control unit connector. The door open and mirror signals pass via this unit. From experience a symptom of this is when the drivers door lock fails to operate from the remote. Your garage seem to be on top of this and are quoting the going rate for the parts.

I have attached some pictures, which will (I hope) make it clearer.

The convenience unit and door lock are from a Fabia, but do not look much different from the Octavia items.

The good news is that if the garage find corrosion on the door control unit plug, they can see that it is wrong, whereby you can't see that a convenience unit is wrong.

what fordfan says is true the pins on my door control unit were coroded 2 of which had snapped off !

also since then spoken to an experienced skoda tech and he also agreed and said to replace the plug and loom cos the wires corode aswell.

I got a replacement window regulator with the door control attached to it via 24/7 spares on line delivered next day for £59 before they sent it i asked them if i could have the plug which goes on it whith 8" of loom attached which they sent no problem at all.

so i cut off the old plug and re conected the replacement using some heat shrink butt conectors which sorted that side of things out only trouble was that the window reg/door control unit was from a different model so sent it back. will sorce another one but making sure the numbers on the door $control unit match this time