Community Forums:

So, a new little gremlin has reared its head.

The car has central locking, so I think that when I lock the drivers side door, all the locks engage. In my 1988 sedan, the trunk lock was attached to this system, and would lock with the rest of the doors.

I've noticced this is not true with the wagon, and my guess is that it is supposed to. In fact, the trunk lock wasn't working with the key either!

I could turn the key in the lock clockwise, and the trunk would sort of lock, but if I took the key out of the lock and then fiddled with the handle, it would open.

So, to secure it for now, I took off the back panel and played with whatever I could reach with my fat fingers in the the dimly lit driveway.

I sort of understand the locking mechanism (which I was amused to learn isn't really a lock, but rather pulling a pin out of the way so that when you pull on the handle, the mechanism still moves, but has nothing to "hit" in order to operate the latch).

There is a spring (looks like a long version of the spring you find in retractable ball point pens) that attaches to the locking mechanism. This spring seems to be pulling the pin back into the "unlocked" position, and maybe preventing the key from turning all the way.

So, as a temporary fix, I switched the spring to pull the locking pin the other direction. Now I can lock the door, and it stays locked. If I unlock the door, it sort of locks on its own, (a poor mans version of the auto lock feature on newer cars when you start driving).

I couldn't really test the central lock attachment to the trunk lock feature, cuz I am too far away from the trunk to hear if there is a click when I turn the key in the driver door, but I suspect is is not working at all.

Any suggestions on how to hunt down the failure?

thanks in advance!