driver's side sliding door not locking electronically?

[supergrapes]

Hi all-

I have a 2004 montana. My sliding door on the driver's side seems to be having locking/unlocking issues!

I can lock and unlock it fine manually. But when I use either the key fob or the door panel controls (i.e. any electrical method of locking or unlocking it), it MOSTLY doesn't work. maybe 20% of the time, it works, which is kind of annoying because it tends to unlock with greater frequency than it locks. So if I go out to grab something out of my car, I unlock it and then relock it with the remote fob, there's a decent chance that door stays unlocked.

Is this a common problem with these vans? This is my second montana, kind of... i used to have a TranSport and it developed the exact same issue but on the passenger's side door. Could be just a weird coincidence, or maybe I'm doing something to my poor vans!

Anyone have any thoughts or things I could check? Would really like to get this resolved, I live in a big enough city that my doors need to lock reliably.

thanks!

 

[Steelcity]

Something easy to check is the door contacts (brass pins and pad)and what they touch on the pilar, clean them up with a pencil eraser . Sometimes they get dirty and are intermittent.

 

[supergrapes]

thanks, will try that now and report back!

 

[supergrapes]

just with a few tests, that seems to have worked.

thanks so much!!