RE: Late night door locks

["Tracy, Peter" <pgt@novelmail.ekbos.com>]

On Saturday, May 04, 1996 2:57 PM, quattro-owner wrote:
>>
>> From: Brooks Ellis <brooks@fortnet.org>
>> Date: Sat, 04 May 1996 10:18:19 -0600
>> Subject: Late night door locks
>>
>> Well, it's either late at night, or early in the morning; all   
depending on
>> how you look at it. Anyway, I have had a question/problem that I have   
been
>> meaning to get some input on, but have just been busy, and forgotten   
about
>> it. ( so here we go ) [ oh, it's a 1990 100 Quattro ]
>>
>>         About a week or week and a half ago, by drivers side   
key-lock/unlock
>> device has stopped functioning. Meaning - the door will lock if you   
press
>> down on the internal lock-post; and will unlock if you pull up on it.   
When
>> you try to use the key to lock/unlock, the whole cylendar will just   
spin
>> around; and nothing will really happen...no lock, no unlock...:( just   
my
>> blood pressure rising.
>>         The door will also lock and unlock if you use the key in the
>> passenger side keyhole-lock-mechanism-thang. It seems that I have   
heard of
>> this happening to some degree of regularity to owners of that general   
style
>> automobile. I looked at another Audi a while ago ( a '90 V8 Q) that   
had the
>> same problem. The guy who was trying to sell it to me said that there   
is a
>> little piece of plastic in the door lock mechanism that connects to   
the
>> keyhole; or something to that effect. He said that his shop quoted him   
about
>> $100 to fix it.
>>
>>         So - _IS_ this a common mode of failure on this style car?   
What can
>> I do about it ( besides locking and unlocking my car from the   
passenger side
>> everytime )? Would this be a simple saturday mechanic in the garage   
type of
>> repair - or would it really be better to take the car to a shop   
experienced
>> in such matters?

I wouldn't be surprised if this is fairly common. It happened on both my   
1990 200 Turbo and my 1990 90Q2V. It cost me about $100 per car to repair   
it at the dealer. I took the door on my 200 apart to see what was wrong   
and if I could fix it. It turns out that it is *extremely* difficult to   
get to the portion of the door in which the lock is located and that is   
why I elected to let them do it.