Driver Door Lock Actuator

[mferreira424]

I drive a 2009 Corolla S and the driver door lock does not work. Brought it to Toyota and they told me the lock actuator needs to be replaced.....$540 for the price. I called them again and asked for the part # and they told me they can probably do it for 1/2 the price. Part # is 69040 06180. I see it around for around $230. Anybody have suggestions if there is any trouble shooting a non tech savvy customer can do?

[FlawedLegacy]

does it not lock at all, not lock with keyless remote or not lock with the hey hole? I'm a bit confused.

[mferreira424]

The power locking feature doesn't work on the driver side. So if you hit unlock on the remote, all doors except the driver's door unlock, and if you hit the power unlock on the door, all doors except the driver's door locks/unlocks.

[FlawedLegacy]

gotcha, def seems to be the driver door actuator. You can take the door panel off (SUPER SIMPLE) and check the cables... might have just come lose for some reason.

[mferreira424]

How do I take the panel off and put it back on? What am I looking for in there?

[FlawedLegacy]

run a search, there is a DIY that shows this. I believe it is the replace front speaker DIY in the DIY thread. As far as what you are looking for, I honestly do not know. Just check to see if some cables are unplugged.

[maktbone]

Same exact thing happened to my '09 LE on the passenger side front door. The car is 6 months out of warranty and has just 35,000 miles on the engine; I just feel like something as simple as an actuator should last much longer than 3.5 years / 35,000 miles!

[Smalls-]

Back in the day I had a 1993 Nissan Maxima. This same thing happened. We were able to remove the actuator and re-solder all the solder points on the board. Basically they were just old a cracked, making the actuator malfunction. You might take that bad boy out and see if you can do the same. Look for cracked/broken solder points.

[poloaa009]

The power locking feature doesn't work on the driver side.

[Silver09]

I wonder if this issue is fairly common?
I went through this a couple of years ago with my car.
The locks started to do some funny things even to the point where they would lock on their own after closing the drivers door.
Had to make a few trips into the dealer before they finally believed me because, their scans were not picking up any codes.
Of course the locks didn't malfunction at the time I took the car in.

Turns out, it was the front passenger side door actuator causing the problems.