Fixed: Door Lock Actuator in Gen II Prius

This is a great write up.
You know, my personal ego is such that I have confidence in my intelligence, skills and abilities. But to be honest a write up like this probably serves me best by simply underlining that this is something I'm NOT going to attempt.

I know my strengths, I know my weaknesses...I know I'd end up doing 100's of dollars of additional damage just trying to do this.

But I'm not kidding when I say "Thanks" because if I ever start having trouble with the door lock actuator, I now know to not hesitate in throwing money at the problem.

 

In that case, you want the lock assembly for the front door. The driver's side (Left Side) is part #69040-47060. The passenger side (right side) is part #69030-47060. My local Toyota dealer wanted $362.00 for it, toyotapartszone.com was saying $233.21, and ebay has them new and used for anywhere from $80.00 to $300.00 as of this posting. No doubt the labor will add more. I would count on one hour's worth and ask what they charge.

A smart person knows their limitations. I was one small mistake away from having a nice weekend, and at times I wished I hadn't gotten into this. But I did eventually solve the problem, so there's that.

 

I just did this job and everything went pretty well. The door is put back together and the lock now works with remote. Upon cleaning up, however, I discovered that I forgot to put the little 'corner cover' back on the actuator...
I don't think this is a big deal but wanted to see what others might think. Do you think it is ok if I just leave this piece off??

 

And now, how I got my door open.

After much study of my new actuator assembly I discovered a weakness, an achilles heel as it were. The part that actually opens the door is this latch assembly. You rotate the lever (clockwise) with the sharp point on it, and the door unlatches. Every time.

Well I noticed that lever had an arm on the other side, to attach it to a spring. Here is the important part of the latch assembly from several different views. The red circle is the important part. Call it a spring clip for lack of a better name. (sorry, cars are not my main hobby).


So I put the whole thing partially back together and noticed I could get to that spring clip if I drilled a hole on the back of the actuator, on the part that sticks out. I made an arrow out of tape to show myself about where to make the hole. You can see the lever that the door pin passes through right near it.



Then I got out the drill, and slowly started making holes.



Eventually I had a hole large enough for my little finger to slip in, and pull down on that spring clip. This was the result:



Would you believe I went in all excited to tell my wife and the wind blew it closed again? Yeah, it did. Doh!


Anyway, this is what the hole looks like. Its the only damage I did to the car. Its a little blurry, but right in the middle of the hole you can see the spring clip. It is forked shaped on this one, and not solid. Worked just as well, though.


And that's it.

 

Very interesting (entertaining even) writeup.

It brought to mind a goofy feature on our '97 Subaru. It has a small access hole on the bottom of the steering column specifically for allowing one to trip a latch to release the ignition key on the occasion when (not if) the automatic mechanism fails to work.
In our experience it only fails about once a year but when it does the feature is handy.
I would have thought they'd be better served to improve the suspect part, but apparently they thought otherwise.

Thanks again!

 

I attempted my rear right door today and did not get very far... I can't get the actuator out. The problem is the window guide rail. I removed the bottom bolt but this does not give enough wiggle room to get the actuator out. I can't see how to remove the rail at the top and I am not quite comfortable with the amount of force I would have to use pulling on the rail for the actuator to squeeze through. Any ideas??? I have done my front door and am ready to accomplish this one. Thanks for all the input thus far!

 

^^^
Anybody?
jfkaiser - was this a problem for you when you did your rear doors?
90miler - I know you just muscled it... did it seem safe? would you do it again?
Or anybody else who has done the rear doors have any advice or tips?

 

Did u figure this out 3rdworld?

I am getting ready to do this tomorrow on right rear door and have already seen this to be a problem in a trial run today.

 

I did it today. Although I just replaced the actuator with a salvage used part ($50). If you remove the inside door handle first, twist the window rail 90° and pull I down it is easy to remove.

 

I going to attempt to rebuild the old part now and if I am successful I can tackle the driver door.

There are 3 different vendors on eBay selling the Mabuchi motor with part # FC-280PC-22125. They all claim theirs is the best original part and the others are knockoffs. Does anybody have experience with any of the vendors and can recommend one over the others?

 

I think my front two doors are failing and I wish I had the cojones to tackle this.

 

Buck up. You can do it!!!!!

 

I appreciate the pictorial repair directions but I'm not sure what the issue is with the rear passenger door lock on my 2011 Prius 4. The passenger in the rear is unable to open the door from the inside, yet the door opens easily from the outside after it is unlocked. Again, when the driver unlocks all the doors on the remote key the rear passenger door will still not open from the inside. What is the issue here on my vehicle? What is the broken part? The dealer will fix it under an extended warranty (I think), but what is really the issue here?

 

Sounds like the child safety switch is set to prevent a small child from opening the door from inside. Usually it's a small switch near the door lock mechanism. It should be explained in the owner's manual.

 

Hello, My name is Jacob I complete all of these steps on the driver side door of my 2005 Prius and when all said and done the motor worked. But there is one problem when I hit lock my driver door unlocks and the rest of my doors lock but then when I hit unlock my driver door locks and the rest unlock. Do you know where I went wrong or how to fix this?

 

Maybe got some wiring switched?

SCH-I535

 

Yes, as in those little Mabuchi motors are DC permanent magnet types, and so will change direction with polarity. Perhaps the leads on the motor are reversed?

 

Do you know of any solution? The leads in the motor only will go in one way.

 

Seems the driver's door actuator is out of sync with the rest of the doors by one cycle. Perhaps you can try unplugging the lead(s) or connector to the driver's door lock actuator and cycle the locking/unlocking once. Then reconnect the driver's side lock actuator.

 

I'm planning on doing my passenger door tomorrow, but the problem I have is, the door won't open.
It was working yesterday but will not open today. All the other doors open from inside or out, but not the passengers.
The latch will not click to red. The door panel is still on.
Any ideas how to get the door to open?