Door actuators keep failing

Hi all, Over the last 18 months, the door actuators on all 4 doors of my 2008 A4 B8 Avant have failed, preventing me from opening the doors from outside. I swapped them out with new ones which was easy enough, but 6 months on, one of the new actuators failed and now 9 months on another of the new actuators has failed.

Can anyone give a clue as to why they keep failing? Its obviously a massive inconvenience to keep on replacing them. I did notice that when I replaced the last one it was wet so I'm assuming there is some sort of water ingress that is shorting out the electrical component. If so, how can I figure out where this water is coming from? Is this something anyone has encountered before? Any suggestions would be much appreciated :D:confused::D

Is your use fairly normal? Plenty of long journeys with a/c on, or does your car sit and get damp in a car Wash?
Other than some unusual factors allowing damp ingress or internal moisture- condensation, I have no suggestions.

By "from outside" do you mean the remote fob doesn't release the deadlock to allow physical handle to open them? It'd be strange if the fob didn't work but the "lock / unlock all doors" button inside did. Do you then open them with a double tug inside?

Obvious source of water would be the window seal - or a child pouring water down inside :o. Pour watering can on roof and see where it ends up.

Have you tried a spray of WD40 on electical parts and / or grease on springs, levers, etc?

Were the replacements new or salvage, and OEM or "overseas"?

Thanks for the replies.

I guess my usage if fairly typical, the car gets used every day with AC turned on and sits on the drive at night.

When this problem occurs I cant open the door from the outside using either the fob or the button inside the car. The only way to open it is with a single tug of the inside latch, so yes its as if the deadlock isnt being released allowing the external handle to work. Strangely it locks absolutely fine, the issue is only with unlocking.

I havent tried any grease or WD40 on any of the parts yet, I'll give it a go when I rip it out again tomorrow (suffering from some man flu today so dont have the strength!)

I've been buying new Chinese parts off ebay so far as theyre about a 3rd of the cost of genuine. Is it the case that they really arent that good?

What I find odd is that all 4 of my original actuators failed and now the replacement ones are also failing in under 2 years. Kinda makes me think that there is a wider issue? I cant see any obvious signs of damp or condensation within the car other than one actuator felt wet.

I've only had one fail. I got a salvage part for about £15 as I tbought it would be more reliable than an Asian clone. It's only been in a month though so hard to tell if I was right there.

I had this happen to three of my doors on my B8 2009 A4. One of the doors fixed itself after a while. The front driver door I replaced the actuator because that's an important door lol. The rear right, I was about to replace the actuator but some ***** wrote off my car.

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