Alfa Spider central locking problems

External Since: Mar 22, 2007 Posts: 4

Anyone faced this problem before?

The key-plip part of the central locking on my Spider has long since
died, but I am still able to unlock and lock the old-fashioned way -
by putting the key in the lock. However since Monday it has not
worked any more.

When it gets REALLY cold the lock doesn't unlock unless you pour warm
water over both door locks and unfreeze them first. Sometimes the
water re-freezes which is a nightmare. On Monday I did this, but as
soon as you release the pressure on the key, the door locked itself
again. Eventually I managed to open the passenger door by holding the
key in the unlock position and pressing the door open button at the
same time. What I hadn't noticed at the time was that it had not
automatically unlocked the driver door as well... and I was unable to
open or unlock the driver door from the inside either. Now it can't
be unlocked at all, not even with the key.

Any idea what I can do about this? Climbing over from the passenger
side every time is not a sustainable option!

Thanks.

External Since: Mar 22, 2007 Posts: 4

On 22 Mar, 11:08, "GT" <ContactGT_remo....TakeThisOut@hotmail.com> wrote:
> <dougstrat....TakeThisOut@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:1174549955.779984.94080@n59g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...
>
>
>
>
>
> > Anyone faced this problem before?
>
> > The key-plip part of the central locking on my Spider has long since
> > died, but I am still able to unlock and lock the old-fashioned way -
> > by putting the key in the lock. However since Monday it has not
> > worked any more.
>
> > When it gets REALLY cold the lock doesn't unlock unless you pour warm
> > water over both door locks and unfreeze them first. Sometimes the
> > water re-freezes which is a nightmare. On Monday I did this, but as
> > soon as you release the pressure on the key, the door locked itself
> > again. Eventually I managed to open the passenger door by holding the
> > key in the unlock position and pressing the door open button at the
> > same time. What I hadn't noticed at the time was that it had not
> > automatically unlocked the driver door as well... and I was unable to
> > open or unlock the driver door from the inside either. Now it can't
> > be unlocked at all, not even with the key.
>
> I wonder if your water pouring has let water into the lock mechanism,
> enabling it to freeze more solidly and more easily! Try getting some
> oil/grease into the lock to help lubricate things. Might not prevent the
> freezing, but would help prevent more damage.
>
> Incidentally, do you have an alarm on the car? Because if you lock with the
> key, the alarm won't be activated and if the car is stolen, your insurance
> company might not pay up!! Its worth getting a new battery for the key fob!- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

Thanks, I'll try some oil and see how it goes.

The car does have an alarm but it has been disconnected since the key
plip went wrong. I replaced the battery in the key but for some
reason it didn't disable the alarm, and subsequently failed to even
unlock the doors. I think there's a problem with the PCB in the key,
which obviously I am not smart/techie enough to fix. So we figured
we'd be better off with no alarm at all. Hardly ideal, but I find
with Alfas you do have to make do and mend quite often.

[By the way as a newbie on here is there any way I can hide my email
address from webcrawler software? When I registered the site asked
for my email address but didn't state - until it was too late to
change - that it would be visible to anyone on the internet. Grrrr.]