Passenger's door fritzy lock switches

[wmjosiah]

Hi all,
This is just in case this helps someone else. For a few months now, I've been dealing with a situation where the passenger door lock mechanism on my '01S sometimes works right, sometimes doesn't know the door is open when it is so the window doesn't stay dropped, causing difficulty closing the door (put the window down or hold the latch up to the last second to workaround), the alarm randomly going off if you lock the car, sometimes the red light on the door lock switch on the dash staying on, and other weird behavior.

I finally took the mechanism out of the door, and noticed while I was doing it (with the door open, of course), the window kept switching back and forth between dropped and not dropped position, suggesting a loose connection. A little more investigation revealed that it was internal to the door lock mechanism, so I took the two halves of it apart (one larger Torx bolt, one clip) and removed the cover from the electrical half that has the motor in it (lotsa smaller Torx bolts), exposing the PCB. Reflowing all the solder joints on that PCB solved my problem. I added a little extra solder too for good measure but it probably wasn't necessary.

I hope that helps someone!