Hey folks - a 'lurker' on here for a while now but its time to introduce myself.

My wife and I bought an '06 55 Plate petrol Sport last year and really like the car. While it has had its issues - a leaking rear shock and a flat battery its been a good car so far.

However a gremlin has set into the central locking that I cannot fathom and wondered if anyone has experienced or could advise? In recent months the fey fob has been only working intermittently when trying to lock/unlock the car. While not to troublesome for me it is for my wife who is a childminder and sometimes cant afford to leave children standing on the kerbside while she goes round to the drivers door to unlock! I thought it was the battery (the other key didnt work when we got it either - again thought a dead battery and never gave it a second thought.

Well.... Changed both fob's batteries a few weeks ago and the problems still persist and indeed have got worse - to the point we had no option to use the key to lock/unlock the doors. On Friday my wife phoned to say that the the central locking wasnt working at all and she couldnt lock the drivers door at all - not exactly very good for security!

I have attempted to 'reprogramme' the keys using a method on here for a Mazda6 with some success - I now have the fob locking/unlocking all the doors BUT never the drivers door. Even locking with the key or from the inside flicking the switch to 'close' I can still open the door using the lever! The interior switch on the drivers door does not engage any of the other doors unless its pushed beyond its normal 'throw'. I have had the door card off today hoping that I might see an issue but all seems to be ok to the naked (and non mechanical) eye. There is a further plastic plate bolted on that hided alot of the electrics, solenoids etc that I just refuse to remove and touch unless I know what I am looking for.

I would take it in to a Stealership but I would prefer to be able to identify the problem for them so I dont get hit with X hours of 'fault' searching before they even solve the problem

Sorry for the long post but I am baffled - my 12 y.o Honda Prelude isnt as sophisticated as this and when I had a problem with my central locking it was an easy fix

Cheers in advance

 

Hi Dadoc2001,

I was wondering if you found a solution to your problem as I have exactly the same issue albeit with a Mazda5 TS2 2006. Also had rear leaking shocks replaced!

I was about to take the door panel off for a look but held off when I read your thread.

I have also had intermittent electric window control on the drivers door - for a while I could not control the rear windows but it came good by itself - and today the hard press to one touch the drivers door window is not working.

My key remote will lock the car but not open it - I checked the battery and put a meter on the switches on the PCB and all seemed good but no red LED when the open button is pressed. For a while a really hard press worked.

So I too resorted to using the key in the lock. Currently, the key doesn't turn properly to the left when trying to lock the drivers door.

Any help appreciated.

Graham

 

Hi Graham,
Sorry to hear you are having similar problems to what I have experienced although it makes me happier I am not the only one!

To be honest there is little I can add to what I have posted before - our car is exactly the same!!! My Mechanic had a quick look at the locking and decided it was the main unit in the drivers door which was at fault. His idea was to get another (working) unit and have a look at it before attempting to fix the one in the car - if we managed it we could then return the unused mechanism.

Unfortunately with the horrific Tsunami in Japan these parts were on back order and had a 3 month lie time - the cost of the unit would be approx £250+ VAT from a dealer and a 2nd hand parts specialist was looking for £150. We decided to hold off for the mew unit. 5 moths later the dealer phoned back - by this time we had learned to live with the gremlins and with my wife falling pregnant again we literally couldnt afford to. fix it anyway!

So a year on we are still in the same boat. Sometimes the fob is tempremental and chooses not to lock/unlock the car and we have to use the key. Also the drivers door NEVER locks even though the nib inside the car flickes closed. Frankly we just make sure nothing 1of value is left in the car and hope that someone gains access and steals the bloody thing!!!! Bot helpful to you I know but I have been so disappointed in the car in terms of reliability and quality of materials outside of the engine compared to other brands I have owned in the past.

Hope you find a solution

 

Its like you've described our car.

We have a 2006 Mazda 5 Sport purchased last year and had the usual Mazda 5 problems.

Dodgy battery causing electric windows to misbehave even though it started fine, rear shock leaking, we have now changed that twice (it's always the right one) and dodgy remote central locking.

I thinking Mazda have used cheap unshielded wiring, which makes the car prone to not accepting a signal from a good remote due to all the Wifi etc which is around nowadays.

Sometimes it would refuse to lock, or unlock for no apparent reason. Mazda have twice found no fault on the diagnostics.

We took the plunge and spent £150 on a new remote fob because one was completely gone and the other was on its last legs. It does seem to work better, but even so, since having this new remote for 2 months, it has refused to unlock the car twice.

I had a Peugeot once which wouldn't unlock if a mobile phone was ringing inside the car, and the remote fob was infra-red not radio based so its not like it was interfering with the remote fob signal.

 

Problem solved for me.

Hi, I had just bought a Mazda5 1.8 petrol 55reg that had an intermittant problem with the key fobs failing to lock/unlock the car. i was able to do it manually but that's not ideal. Tried replacing the batteries in the fobs £3.50 for 2 at the dealer and one wasn't showing any sign of life and the other still a problem. Had a diagnostic done at main dealer which showed no faults so a hard reset was done on the car's computer with car battery disconnected to wipe computer then reinstalled. Cost £55 and central locking works perfectly everytime and BOTH fobs have come back to life-maybe it was a combination of battery fobs n car but the combo worked and was realatively cheap for a main dealer.

 

Thanks for the info Kah, I will investigate!

Care to mention the dealer?