Odd door lock and fuel gauge behaviour: related?

[SebRogers]

I posted recently about my fuel gauge's erratic behaviour. Before I could follow through on Marco's helpful suggestion that it might be a dry joint, it played up for 10 days straight. Then the front passenger door lock began to intermittently misbehave too, refusing to unlock except manually (using the inside handle). Since the car still has a couple of months' warranty left, I thought 'what the heck' and took it back to the independent I bought it from.

After a bit of poking around and a VAGCOM check, they came to the conclusion it needed a new lock mechanism (makes sense to me, since you can still hear the motor working even when it's not unlocking) and a new dash cluster. Total cost around £800

Which is, of course, where the warranty comes in. The good news: in theory, it's all covered. The bad news: before the repairs can go ahead, the warranty company needs to send an engineer. The reason that's bad news: since having had the car looked at, the fuel gauge has been perfect and the lock's only played up intermittently The garage didn't clear the fault codes so I'm hoping they'll demonstrate there's a problem even if the lock and gauge are behaving themselves on the day (though whether that's enough for the warranty people to cough up is another matter - I'm not holding my breath).

My question is this: is it possible the two incidents are related? I can remember a few times that the lock's played up, now that I think about it, but up until now a quick relock and unlock has usually sorted it. And until the past 10 days, the lock and fuel gauge haven't played up at the same time. But is there a single ECU controlling both?

My plenum chamber is dry and I've had no other odd electrical problems, if that helps...

[kenney]

I do not think the faults are related.

[SebRogers]

Thanks Kenney. Thought not, but it was worth asking. Must just be unlucky...