Good evening! If you have arrived here, it's probably late, you can't go and work on the car and so you are trawling the internet for a line that says "this is how to fix it". You are hoping for that 'eureka moment' to come and are already concocting an excuse to present to the 'significant other' justifying that need to "quickly check something on the car" (that s/he is already fed up of), while hiding the torx screwdriver in your pocket carefully not stabbing yourself with it by mistake...

I feel you buddy.

And so, just to add to the barrage of threads out there that you are reading because your soft close is not working - I would like to share my discovery with you, as simple as it is (and the first thing many more experienced folks would check).

While fixing something else, I found that the harness for the door handle had become disconnected. Broken securing clip - no idea why or how that happened! So before you go and spend on new (secondhand/ebay) components, taking the door card off is free and pretty easy (remember the clip for seat controls - you'll be sorry if you force it and the hidden latch to release the door card just behind the said control unit).

Another clue is if your Keyless GO lock button and infrared "summer opening" feature are BOTH inoperable (on that door obviously) - also if you have to physically 'pull' the door handle for the car to unlock (Keyless GO model only), you should only need to 'touch it' for the unlock to occur.

I had all three minor issues down as different things, but of course they were all linked to the door handle. I only noticed that the harness had become unplugged while the door card was off and I was wire tracing for a different problem. The connector for the door handle is 'right up there' and a little difficult to see, but you can definitely get to it. If it's plugged in and you have made the assessment that your door handle is the culprit, then at least you have a starting point.

Plugged back in and we have soft close, correct Keyless GO operation and infrared summer opening!

I hope there are enough search terms here for you to find this extra bit of late-night literature.