mihir_d

My rear door just started refusing to lock. It jitters everytime the autolock switch is depressed to lock the doors...everytime the car crosses the 9mph speed, all locks flick and one lock on the rear door keeps jittering...

Anyone experienced this? What is the probable cause for this??

mbtech208

The door lock actuator is bad, fairly common problem on the ML. The central locking module sees that the rear door isn't locking, so it keeps cycling the door locks, trying to get it to lock. After a few cycles, it gives up.

pointman

i agree.

mihir_d...complain to the dealer, possible comp.

mihir_d

There is more to this though..

At 30K miles they had to do the same with my passenger side rear door lock.

Now I am at 73K and the driver side rear door lock did the same thing...looking at the mileage, I didn't feel like complaining or getting it done under good will...

but...here's an interesting story that unearthed from this incident..

I had been noticing some sort of sticky glue coming out once in a while on my glass window of the door that had been fixed previously at 30K miles...coincidently this time when I dropped it for the second door, I happened to mention them about that...

They gave me the scoop on it...

They apparently have to tear the sound damping material in the door to get to the lock actuator...when they are done, they glue the torn sound damping material back in place...this glue in extreme heat melts and if you happen to roll the window down...it sticks to the glass pane...

They promised me 2 things.

1. For this second door, they will replace the sound damping material with a new one instead of glueing it...at no extra charge..(no labor/no parts for it)

2. At a later point of time, they will also re-do the first door and put new sound damping material in it to fix the glue problem...again at no charge..

I was sort of happy with their proposal...inspite of being relieved of $358 this time...

Will the front door lock actuators do the same too????

pointman

thanks for the info on the glue.

the fronts could eventually end up doing it too...its a really well known prob with the ml.

mbtech208

The front door actuators go bad too, just like the rears. The sticky residue explanation isn't entirely accurate. The sound dampening isn't disturbed by replacing the actuators, it fails entirely on it's own. What happens is the strips of material get old and start to peel away from the door shell, eventually contacting the glass and leaving smears. They get replaced with strips that are magnetic as well as adhesive, thus eliminating the chances of the adhesive wearing out. All four doors have these insulating strips as well as the sunroof, so if you get smears when you close the windows or sunroof, that's where they came from.