Broken rear driver side door lock actuator

May I ask what they symptoms of your lock failures were? Were they 100% dead or only intermittent? Was manual operation effected?

My rear passenger side door lock is intermittent when automatically unlocking or locking. Manual operation is fine. I'd say about 30% of the time an automatic unlock of all doors will leave the rear passenger locked. About 40% of time I do an automatic lock, it will blink the yellow corner lights, try to lock all doors, fail to beep, blink the lights again and try to lock all doors (this time successfully) and finally give a beep.

I've been ignoring it for now. Maybe when the weather gets nicer I'll tackle the replacement.

 

This reply is kinda late but, hopefully, it will help somebody.

I have now replaced all 4 door lock assemblies on my 2008 Prius. The first one to go was the front passenger door, then the right rear passenger door (I arbitrarily replaced the left side at the same time, since I was then familiar with the process and it took much less time because of that...) and now the front passenger door. The last one was the hardest. There is an excellent post somewhere on PriusChat about removal and replacement of the lock assemblies that has plenty of pictures, so I won't try to duplicate that, except for one piece of advice: Beware of attempting to replace the little DC motor in the assembly in order to repair the existing assembly. Although replacement motors are available on eBay, the ones you buy may or may not be wound the same as the originals. If they are wound opposite of the originals, they will operate backwards. Yes, you can reverse the two wires that operate the motor (cut, swap and splice...), but you also have to cut the motor shaft shorter and grind (or file) a flat on the shaft to fit the little worm gear. That kinds eats into your savings for not having to buy the whole assembly. Yes, the little motors are only a few dollars each, but the hassle (to me) is not worth the savings if the motors are backwards.

And one more piece of advice... The front driver's side door requires that you insert the little rod that extends from the manual key lock into a little socket at the top of the lock assembly. It requires a good bit of patience to get it in there because the lock assembly has to be positioned rather awkwardly to get the manual lock rod into the socket and there is very little maneuvering room inside the door. Also make sure that the vertical rod that extends down from the door handle is inserted into the hole in the lever near the bottom of the lock assembly or you won't be able to operate the door. All of the doors have the vertical rod from the handle to the lock assembly, but only the front driver's side door has the manual key lock rod.

The dealer does charge a lot of money to remove and replace the lock assembly. My local dealer does sell parts online for substantially less than the over-the-counter price, so I use that option. This time, the assembly was right around $300. My dealer's Parts Department balked a little when I showed up with a printout of the part and price I found online, but they did finally agree to sell the part at the online price. (If your dealer does the same thing, just say, "Fine", leave the part on the counter, go home and order it, then install it a few days later when it arrives in the mail.)

I wish the parts were a little cheaper, but I've easily recovered the investment in my Prius with fuel savings, virtually no repairs other than the door lock assemblies and a couple of sets of tires. I only recently had to have the front brakes done for the first time at 140,000 miles. If some knucklehead rear-ends me tomorrow and totals the car, the first thing I'll do is go get another Prius.

 

and remove all the door lock motors.

 

Touché...