Drivers Door Loom

[Jamiem]

When I bought my car back in March, I had an intermittent boot switch on the drivers door card. Sometimes it worked, others it didn't. It didn't really bother me, so I ignored it. Recently I've had a problem where by the dash doesnt always recognise when the drivers door is opened, but everything else has been working just fine. Tonight when I pulled up at home, I opened the door and the boot lock popped. It then sat there popping every 10 seconds or so. Moving the wiring loom inside the rubber boot between the door and A-post made the switch back-lights flash on and off, so I knew that's where the fault lie. I've just spent the past hour and a half outside in -5 degrees pulling the loom out, and stripping the loom tape away to find this:



I think there was probably one or 2 broken wires, and disturbing them has finished off the others. I've bought some wire, solder and heat shrink as I had run out of all of the above, and will repair it tomorrow. I'm surprised at the obvious fatigue damage, and also very disappointed. For a car thats 9 years old, the number of faults I've had in the past 6 months is totally unacceptable, I just hope I'm over the worst of it!

[Chipped2]

Usually the thicker wires are the first to fatigue.

Simply soldering the broken wire ends together will create a stiffness in the wire which will then fatigue sooner.

It is better to solder a new similar sized wire to the broken end...shrink wrap to insulate.....wrap the new wire loosely a couple of times around the other wires....then solder the new length of wire .......suitably shortened...... to the other broken end then shrink wrap that joint also.

This in effect creates a 'spring' that spreads the fatigue loads over a longer length of wire.

Do this with each broken wire using similar replacement wire for each repair. It solves the problem permanently. Check each door loom and repair as necessary.

The B4 cars in particular suffer badly due to their age and breaks can cause many associated problems too. The rear passenger nearside door breaks can also knock out the electric sunroof if fitted.

With regard to your drivers door not being recognised as being 'open' can also be a faulty drivers door lock which contains several micro switches that are prone to break or to become detached from their circuit boards. They can sometimes be resoldered/repaired but in my case it was easier to completely replace the whole lock which is unfortunately approx £100 but by far the easy option.

Slamming any door does eventually result in these sorts of problem. Go easy on them!

[Jamiem]

That's exactly what I'm going to do, going to cut 3-4 inches either side of where it's broken and add some new wire in its place. Total pain in the **** of a job, and one which I imagine a dealer would have charged a fortune for. Fingers crossed it solves it all