2012 TSX Door Lock Actuators - Why are they failing?
 

My 2012 TSX has been back to the dealer 7 times for failing door lock actuators and 1 fuel door actuator. The car currently has 90k+ miles on it. Initially, the failures were covered under the Acura CPO warranty, but my dealer has been very good about covering the costs even after the warranty has expired. What they've never been able to explain is, why is this happening?

I suppose it's just bad luck, but how is it possible that I've gotten so many back actuators? What is causing these to fail? I feel like there is something else going on. I've asked the dealer if there is some other underlying problem that would be causing this and they shrug their shoulders.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

I'm going to bump my own thread here. It's been more than a year since I first posted, and 4700+ views, but no replies. Once again, I have lock actuators failing on my 2012 TSX. It always starts out with the locks emitting a groaning or whining sound when locking or unlocking the car. Eventually, the lock actuator will fail completely and I can only lock/unlock the door manually by flipping the switch on the door. Now, one of the doors will not open at all; I assume that the lock itself is stuck.

I know that I can fix the problem by just replacing the lock actuators, as that is what the dealer has done for me several times. That will work for a while, but eventually the locks just stop working again.

I want to know what is causing these lock actuators to fail? It's near impossible that I've just had bad luck and have gotten 10-12 (i've lost count) defective lock actuators. What is the system that drives these power locks? Are they all wired back to some central device/system that is causing this? Over/under voltage?

Thanks for any direction you can provide.

do you still have the bad ones?
if you still have the bad ones, open them badboys up.

perhaps a gear is broken? perhaps the electrical contacts are corroded?
who knows what is happening until you open them up and find the cause.


what you will find is that its cheaper to replace the whole actuator then to fix the broken components.
thus why it's just easier to buy a new actuator.

sounds like a gear is broken or perhaps the motor is broken

again, no one will be able to tell you, until you open them bad boys up and find what is broken.

I don't have the old lock actuators. The dealer has always replaced them under warranty, or just through good will. I'm quite sure that the actuator is defective. I'm just trying to figure out if there is a problem elsewhere that's causing it. I've had the lock actuators on all four doors replaced at least 2 times each. I'd rather not buy a $225 lock actuator just to know that another one is going to fail 6 months later.

To me, that's not just a coincidence. Surely there's something else going on that is causing this to happen.

if a gear is broken, the question is...where can you source the exact gear?
at my previous place of employment; we dealt with obscure machines that no one made parts for any longer.
what we ended up doing is creating our OWN gears by 3D printing them.

again, with cheap electronics, it's just cheaper to replace the item then to fix the item

it's a cheaply made electronic item, I can assure you that either a gear is broken, or the electrical contacts had gotten corroded.
if the contacts were corroded, one can take apart the machine and clean the contacts, but in time...it will get corroded again.

since you can still hear the motor working, that rules out the contacts...
it's gotta be a gear that has broken and not actuating the actuator.

exactly what i thought, a gear is broken or motor is broken.

I've replaced lock actuators on all four doors, multiple times each. This isn't just a one-off failure. I can buy new new actuators, but it feels like throwing money away, since I know that they will just fail *again*. Have I hit the bad-luck lottery *nine times*? Or is there something else going on? Are they all cabled back to some central control unit that is flaky and causing the problem?

no, it's a cheaply made electronic item. the motor inside the actuator has failed and or the gears are broken.

Of course they will fail again, it's a cheaply made electronic item. the gears will eventually break and or the motor will eventually fail.

IMO, the door lock actuators taking a shit is just part of Honda ownership. On the wife's 2003 Accord coupe, I've replaced one side twice and the other once. This last time, they both failed within a couple months but previously it was just the driver's side which I suspect is because it got more cycles since the doors don't all unlock at the same time.

In my wagon, they're starting to groan so I'm expecting to start replacing them soon too. I can't tell if it's just one or all of them; I've got all 4 doors set to unlock simultaneously, so it wouldn't surprise me if they all take a shit at the same time.

I've just started to think about the actuators as wearable items like brake pads. And I've gotten about the same life out of the cheaper China actuators from Amazon, so I just pick up whatever unit I need for like $20 and put it in when they crap out. They're so cheap, it's not really worth the time to crack them open to see what's wrong, IMO.

Follow Up?
 

bump. I recently started hearing the "groan" you spoke of in an earlier post. Sounds like I will have to replace the actuators. Just thinking "out loud" here, do you think there's a lubrication issue that's causing friction when the doors locks are moving? I can only imagine this causing extra strain on the actuators if lubrication of the locking system is actually a thing. My mechanical knowledge level is average. Curious how things are going for you since your post. Thanks

Thanks to the global pandemic, I have barely put any miles on my car over the past year. During the colder months, I was hearing more groan than it seems to do now so I haven't actually lost any actuators nor needed to replace them. But I do think about it every time I lock the doors.

The actual actuator sub-part is a sealed unit. I think I remember breaking into one of the first actuators I replaced on the 2003 Accord, just to see... and it was pretty unremarkable.

Overall, my opinion is that it's such a cheap part to replace, and the bulk of the effort is the labor and time to just get to the damn things; so it's not worth trying to solve or do any preventative lubrication. Once you've invested the time and effort to get into the door and pull the actuator, it's more efficient to replace it with a new one rather than lube it up or anything.

Gotcha. Yeah, I wouldn't spend the time getting to them without replacing them, but I was thinking of (as you were in earlier posts) why they break down in the first place. Not familiar with the internal locking mechanisms (yet), but there has to be some moving parts from the door handle lock down that could use some lubrication? Ill have to check it out if/when I get into it. Thanks for your info!

The door locks/switches from the outside and inside parts of the door connect to the actuator by a series of thin metal bars and plastic clips to form the pivot points. The plastic/metal interface is inherently low friction. Really the only place that could take lubrication would be inside the actuator mechanism itself. And like we've said, getting to that point isn't trivial.

I think the actuator itself is really only a 1/4-turn solenoid. I forget if there might be some gears inside to provide torque multiplication, but it's all plastic so also pretty low friction.

I guess I've never given much thought past "cheap thing broke cheaply", but actually writing out what's involved in the system, it is a little strange that it dies like it does. I'm wondering now if the failure is really with the electrical coil in the solenoid.

I'll check to see if I might have an old actuator still under my workbench. Might be worth hitting it with a hammer to take a look at.

Absolutely fascinating to me that this thread is still alive, lol! I'm currently living with 1 dead actuator and 1 that sounds like it's dying. Both rear doors, so it's not a big deal for me right now. I'm still convinced that something else in the car is making these things die. Like I said originally, I've had all 4 doors fixed 2 times each, and now I have 2 more that need to be done. I understand they are cheaply made components. But still, what are the odds? And to top it off my wife's 2015 MDX is starting to show the same failures!

The locks are all connected back to a a central locking control system; I assume that's the unit in the driver's door. Is it possible that the control unit itself is the problem? Sending too much or too little voltage to the locks?

^no. lol

the cheaply made motor dies by either corrosion on the contacts or a gear breaks.

Cant stop wont stop corrosion forming on metal..because that's what metal does. when exposed to air, metal will corrode.

the electrical coil breaking makes a lot of sense.