Central Locking And Alarm Problems

[mrchris1982]

For the last so many months our car, a 2003 Ford Galaxy 1.9 TDI Ghia has worked with no problems at all. A mechanic friend had looked to cure a problem with the control of all the windows from the drivers door, resulting now in the fact that the front two can be controlled for up and down but not the rear two. I am guessing this wiring is disconnected. I am sre this must have been tucked away. The car has been this way for a number of months. Recently we have found when we unlock the door with the key, not always does the central locking unlock and often will just unlock the driver door and leave the alarm on, neither deactivating this during unlocking. I know this as the light still flashes at the top of the door. Naturally the alarm goes off when you open the door and it is then a struggle to get the other doors to open if at all. Either locking the door again or starting the engine with the key will stop this. This problem doesn't occur all of the time and sometimes a series of unlocking and locking will eventually work, unlocking all the doors and deactivating the alarm.

 

Any ideas as is becoming annoying?

 

p.s We don't bother with remote locking key (fear of the immoliser chip falling from that particular key.. had first hand experience of that..)

[BrianH]

Broken wires - Front drivers side door gaiter between door and body to start with. The other possibility for the rear windows is if you have a rear window lockout switch (mine doesn't have rear electric windows) that its either not plugged it properly, not switched to the right position, or the wires feeding it are broken or the switch just does not work.

[Leedixon80]

I've got same issue, looked atbwires as best I can on drivers door and found 1 green wire broken , could this be my issue,thanks

[BrianH]

I don't know what the wire colours relate to offhand, but if one is broken then fixing it would be a good idea if possible. Replacing the broken wire with a new bit of wire is recommended though.

[mrchris1982]

It is all very strange. I have taken the door panel off and like LeeDixon80 (above) says, I too have had a look at best as possible at the wires, which are trunked and then only individually exposed at the various plug heads. I could not see any that were broken. Another anomaly now is that the the LED light for the alarm does not flash when it should as armed but it is armed as it goes off if the locking mechanism has not disarmed it in respect of my first posted problem. However, I have realised that if I lock or unlock the car via the tailgate, although no alarm LED is present, it does lock and unlock properly every time on all of the doors.

 

Another theory of mine is that the drivers doors mechanisms appear central to the issues here and since having some work done on the car a few months ago, the drivers door internal control panel (all windows, door locks etc in handle) has never fully worked, firstly with a loss of control over the rear door windows (no up or down working) and now the central locking on the door too i.e. the doors can all be locked from this panel but again, only the fronts will unlock and this often leaves the back doors locked in a way that they then can only be opened from outside.

 

Is there value in replacing this whole hub of switches (it comes out from the handle as a block)? It has one plug head going into it, which spurs off to different places. Has anyone else had issues with these controls? and Is it possible that this is the source of the problems?

[BrianH]

If the wires have broken it will be in the gaiter (the rubber boot between the door and car body) as that's the bit that moves.

 

Wiring issues on the galaxy are common. Down to design and poor quality wires. Though it's possible you've got other issues

[gregers]

also check the wires in the boot.

[BrianH]

also check the wires in the boot.

Yep don't apply "common sense" and assume that the boot one isn't connected to it being a separate part of the car - others have learnt that mistake eventually!