My wife reports our two-week-old RDX is acting very strangely the past couple of days. First she said the dome lights periodically came on by themselves during the 8-mi. roundtrip to her office yesterday. Also the auto door locks kept unlocking & relocking at the same time. Finally, the door ajar indicator showed the left rear door was open, but when she pulled over to check it was closed! I took it for a test drive last night & concluded it was probably not shut tight or possibly the door switch was stuck.

Now she called & said the car alarm has gone off a couple times. Putting all this together I'm thinking the door switch must have a periodic short & intermittently sends a false signal that the door is open? I did have some body work done on that side (painless dent removal on the edge of the roofline) that required removal of the interior panels; but I don't think they had to go that low.

Anyone heard of similar electrical problems?

TIA,
Dave

 

Damn...That's Weird..I got mine At Oct '06 and no problem except flat tires..try to bring it at the dealer..maybe it will help

 

I'd bet the PDR guy somehow disrupted the wiring if the problem only showed up after that work was done.

The door switches normally trigger a ground when the door is open; if the wiring was shorting against the body somewhere, it would send the same signal.

 

Pretty much what I'm thinking too.

Update: we were eating dinner last night around 7 & suddenly the car alarm went off! I was able to shut it off with the remote, but this adds more mystery: the car was parked at the time (and had been for almost two hours), so if it is a short what caused it? I would expect vehicle movement should be involved...

And why would this problem show up 10 days after the body work? (You'd think it would normally occur right away) FWIW, I disconnected the battery about an hour before in an attempt to reset any memory setting that might cause this.

We have a 300+ mi. road trip planned this weekend, but if this happens enroute will be visiting our dealer next week - trouble is, I know he needs detailed info to diagnose this problem & I haven't quite figured out the pattern.

-Dave

 

Was it raining? Maybe water leaking inside?

 

If it is a short / pinched wire somewhere, then it does not have to obey any sort of common sense.... at all. In fact, this would confirm my suspicion the more erratic it gets.

Have you played with the door switch at all? It could merely be a screwed up switch. You could try disconnecting the door switch, and if the problem goes away that's the culprit. If not, then the problem is somewhere upstream of the switch (wiring).

On newer cars, the door signals feed into a computer somewhere (on my Subaru, they fed directly into the ECU). This is because the door switches serve a variety of purposes nowadays.

What interior panels were removed to do the PDR work? I might start by looking at those.

 

>>>You could try disconnecting the door switch, and if the problem goes away that's the culprit. If not, then the problem is somewhere upstream of the switch (wiring).
<<<

Now that's a great idea! I did poke it a few times & it seemed to be working correctly, but...

The PBR guy took out the headliner, upper LH interior panels, & side airbags. I wasn't there so he may have removed the lower panels to gain access. In any case, this one's on the dealer if the problem doesn't go away. Bummer to have it in the shop with only 600 mi. on the clock, but I already had in with 56 mi. to get the dents fixed (roof rack installer dimpled the roof with his ladder) so I guess I'm getting used to it! So much for Acura dealer service...

 

But if you disconnect the door switch and the problem goes away, the problem still could be in the wiring of the door switch. You'd have to replace the door switch and if it went away then the problem was the door switch.

 

I was thinking if the door switch is disconnected, there is no way it can ground the circuit like it's supposed to do when the door is open (and may be doing when it's not supposed to). With the switch disconnected, if the problem completely goes away then I suspect the switch. If the problem sticks around with the switch disconnected, then something else has to be accidentally grounding.

That said, I am more and more convinced that the problem is in the wiring. Sounds like the PDR guy had to take a lot of interior parts out. Dropping the headliner involves a lot of interior panel removal. I bet the wiring harness got disrupted somehow.

That is tragic that the roof was dented up when the rack was installed! Did the dealer do that install? Were they leaning a ladder against the car, or did the guy slip? I am preparing to install the racks on my RDX at some point (maybe sooner than later) and have been thinking about rigging up an elevated work platform rather than mess with a ladder.

 

These problems are reminiscent of those that I had with my Audi A4. The dealer had to end up completely replacing most of the interior wiring, as well as the ECU.

Not saying that you'll need to do the same, but electrical gremlins can be extremely difficult to troubleshoot.

 

Quick update: we took the car on an extended trip this past weekend (330 mi over the Cascades) and there were zero electrical problems! (If I hadn't heard the alarm go off last week myself I'd say the missus was imagining things!) The only reason I can think of was the "reboot" I did by disconnecting the battery. As Fishbulb mentioned this sounds like an ECU issue - gawd I hope it's resolved as those can be a real bitch, but I'll be watching closely...

FWIW - I did reprogram the door locks to unlock all doors when shifting into Park the day after I brought the car home. Interestingly, I tried to do that again before the trip to unlock when the ignition is turned off on the off-chance that had something to do with it. The new programming DID NOT take even though I followed the instructions to the letter (reverting back to my previous program), so maybe that further indicates an ECU problem?

Thanks for all who responded with suggestions!

-Dave

PS for c_hunter: yes, the dealer did the roof rack install, but I don't think (hope) they intentionally leaned the ladder against the car...someone probably kicked it by mistake & it smacked the side of the roof by accident. Still, you would have thought it would have been noticed & corrected long before I took possession! The rack was installed on a stock (i.e. unsold) car probably for the recent auto show.

 

Final Update: After a week with no problems the car alarm went off three times in a row last Saturday after a short drive. I had to leave the car unlocked all night because I was afraid it would go off again! (is there a way to lock the car without setting the alarm?)

So I broke down & took it into the dealer Monday and after a few hours they called & said the left rear door switch was "sticky". Apparently this was intermittently sending a false door open signal which was setting off the alarm. Fortunately they had a replacement in stock so I had the car home that afternoon.

Pretty much as I & others in this thread thought although the switch itself was never suspect in my mind. Not sure how a sticky switch could randomly ground itself - you would think it would tend to stay closed? Unless it actually works the opposite of all the door switches I'm familiar with & breaks the circuit instead. Anyway, so far so good. Hopefully this thread will help someone in the future who experiences similar problems.

-Dave

 

no way to lock the car w/out the alarm setting, its a passive system so it does it for you (as far as i know, but i didnt sleep at a holiday inn express last night either)

 

I would have tried an exorcist

 

OK, my last post about this I promise! Fours days after the dealer replaced the door switch the wife calls on her way home and says the dome lights/door locks/door ajar indicator are going nuts just like before. I told her not to turn it off & met her in the driveway. All was happening as she said but I could stop it by repeatedly opening & closing the door, although didn't work every time. I finally grabbed the switch boot & started wiggling and discovered I could flash the door ajar indicator on & off just by moving the switch up & down - not in & out like expected. The coaxial tolerances were actually pretty sloppy & it moved quite a bit (+/- 1/16")! Hmmm...

So I got a felt pen, painted the end of boot, & shut the door to see exactly where it touches the door. It was hard to tell (didn't have any clay handy) but it looked like the door was barely depressing the switch; which I suspect is allowing it to shift vertically like I just did & causes an intermittent door open signal. Probably happens as the body flexes & the door shifts in it's frame, although I'm not sure why it was setting off the alarm at night. Maybe the door moves slightly as the car cools down?

Anyway, no way to adjust the switch in & out I could see, so I found a self-adhesive rubber bumper about 1/4" thick & stuck it right over the spot on the door - which effectively depressed the switch another 1/4". The problem disappeared & so far has not happened again after a week. I might do this to the other doors "just in case".


Just a heads up in case anyone else experiences this problem!

-Dave

 

So it should be a body integrity problem ?
Look at another post on this with a rear inside noise. Good luck.

 

Doesn't sound like an integrity issue. It sounds like a manufacturing issue. The switch is just not seated correctly. If it were an integrity issue, alot more people would be complaining of similar body defects. It just sounds like one of those things where every now and again something just doesn't go in quite right.

 

I think I have similar problem. It says passenger door ajar when it's not