Hi Folks there is a buzzing sound coming from the divers side rear door on my 1999 4.6 P38 whenever I lock or unlock the car it only lasts a few seconds and the door lock does operate ,is it likely to be the solenoid. I intend to strip the door card off and check the mechanics internally, I am wondering if it’s worthwhile getting a second hand solenoid just in case ,are all the solenoids the same or are they specific to a certain door ?.

boycie said:

Hi Folks there is a buzzing sound coming from the divers side rear door on my 1999 4.6 P38 whenever I lock or unlock the car it only lasts a few seconds and the door lock does operate ,is it likely to be the solenoid. I intend to strip the door card off and check the mechanics internally, I am wondering if it’s worthwhile getting a second hand solenoid just in case ,are all the solenoids the same or are they specific to a certain door ?.

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I have 2 that do this, it's just a bit of excess friction leading to a sort of clutch mechanism slipping. Not serious as far as I'm concerned.

Seen it plenty of times.

The motor/clutch arrangement is fairly crude - it's not actually a solenoid, but rather an actual motor that spins and a spring loaded pin pops out to contact with a metal hasp on a plastic gear, which then spins and moves the locking mechanism.

The buzzing, as far as I have been able to ascertain happens once the locking mechanism has reached the end of it's travel, and instead of the motor stalling (it only does it for a fraction of a second before power is cut so it doesn't burn out) the pin manages to push past the metal hasp and it keeps spinning and that's what caused the buzz - the metal on metal of pin going past the hasp.

If the latch is locking and unlocking as it should do, then it's not going to burn anything out, or damage anything.

Have this on my 2000 P38 and found it was the passenger front door handle was not retracting into housing properly when opened, a bit of scratch paper , quick spray of wd40 on handle soon sorted it out, know colour coded covers on handles have been changed before purchase of vehicle and think they are slightly to big. When you close door and lock it thump handle to see if buzzing stops

Thanks for taking the time to reply folks much appreciated,I thought I might end up locked out of the car or even worse Jackie ends up locked out of the car as she has decided to use it everyday to take the dogs out ,she now prefers it to her Golf .