Buzzing central locking

[DVR]

Hi guys,Anyone encountered this?
I got my 06 STR from a private seller 3 weeks ago. The morning after I got it, as I approached the locked car to go to work I could hear a buzz coming (it seemed) from about the center of the firewall. Unlocking the car silenced it. I put the car in for it's 40k service and mentioned it to my mechanic. and he found it was coming from inside the car behind the dash, but didn't want to go digging around for it as it wouldn't be cost effective for him, so he recommended I take it to an auto electrician (I havent yet). I locked myself inside the car and man it's loud!! When I got home I pulled the dash fascia off and found it was coming from the central locking relay/timer but only when the drivers door is locked either by the c/l button, the lock button or the key. You can lock the other 3 doors manually no problem but the drivers door causes it to freak out. It's a black box about 4 matchboxes big. inside there are 2 small relays and a small simple circuit board.

Next door to where I work we have a friendly Pulsar wrecker. He recons a new 1 is $200 and is trying to find a second hand 1 for less but he's looked for 2 weeks now with no joy. Annoyingly some PULSARS have the same C/L controls/features as STR's but their relay boxes, while the same size and do the same thing has 7 pins in the plug and the NAV has 8. Whats with that? (don't answer that I know it already)

Anyway my questions after all that are,
1) anyone else had this?
2) Could it be a fault with the relay or possibly some sensor in the door?

I've left the relay unplugged to shut it up but having to reach all around the car to lock/unlock is a pain.

 

[Old.Tony]

Hi,

No problems with mine but no stranger to awkward relays. A faulty (read "dirty") connection could easily be the reason, or a cold solder joint, flaky coil inside the relay, contacts that have arced - the list goes on.

If you can just replace the relay you'd probably resolve the problem. The driver's door would be on its own relay because of anti-hijacking feature which can be activated to open the drivers door only on the first press, then other doors on the second.

Before doing that, naturally I'd be unplugging it and checking the pins for signs of corrosion or foreign matter. Before pulling the relay out completely, if I couldn't see the contacts to determine their state of health, I'd just touch a soldering iron to the PCB contacts to ensure it wasn't a cold solder joint. If that failed, I'd then pull it out and source another.

 

[DVR]

Yes I think your right about the drivers door being on it's own relay but I think that maybe it's 1 of the 2 relays INSIDE the black box. We've tried having it buzz while the circuit board (with the relays attached) is outside of it's box but the buzz is so pervasive we couldn't tel which one was buzzing.
Anyway Cheers for that Old.Tony

 

[Old.Tony]

If you've got the thing out, a quick check with a multimeter or a test lamp will show you which one it is.