S1 Xantia V6 - no start, no central locking

[DHallworth]

My dads old Series 1 Activa used to unlock itself whilst parked on the driveway or when he was at work. It was traced down to water ingress in one of the front door latches if memory serves me correct... He had that when I was in high school... so it was a long time ago!!

David.

[Mandrake]

My dads old Series 1 Activa used to unlock itself whilst parked on the driveway or when he was at work. It was traced down to water ingress in one of the front door latches if memory serves me correct... He had that when I was in high school... so it was a long time ago!!

Hi David

That sounds very similar to what happened to Dad's Xantia - it kept unlocking itself randomly so you'd come back to the car to find it unlocked... I'm not sure what's worse - having your car unlock itself while you're parked in the city and away from the car and finding all your contents "removed", or having it lock by itself while the key is in and the engine is running while you open a gate!

On his car I'm pretty sure the problem was in the switch assembly in the front passenger door - and we just used contact cleaner on the switch and plug to fix it. The switch certainly wasn't replaced as there were no easily available over in NZ.

Naturally my locking has not misbehaved one bit since the problem went away a week ago. I'm sure it is biding its time, waiting until I have been lulled into a false sense of security so it can lock the keys in the car for me...

[CitroJim]

Naturally my locking has not misbehaved one bit since the problem went away a week ago. I'm sure it is biding its time, waiting until I have been lulled into a false sense of security so it can lock the keys in the car for me...

Oh ye of little faith!

Wise though

[Mandrake]

Two months on and not a single re-occurrence of the phantom door locking... still scratching my head as to what the original cause was but I have given up worrying about it as I have bigger fish to fry!

[CitroJim]

Hopefully it'll now stay away for good Simon... It's a bit like the very intermittent cutting out issue on my daughter's 207. Since a BSI reset back in January it's been OK but again can go for months on end without suffering and then it has a spate of it..

[elma]

Mine has occasional phantom unlocking I think, never totally sure I locked it when I return and it is open.

[Mandrake]

Mine has occasional phantom unlocking I think, never totally sure I locked it when I return and it is open.

Isn't that called age ? I have that problem too... (the occasional panicked, "did I lock the house/car ?" after its too late to check...

[elma]

Isn't that called age ?

I'm only 50% older than the car, we're basically teenagers.

[CitroJim]

Isn't that called age ?

I'm only 50% older than the car, we're basically teenagers.

That's a good way of looking at it James...

I'm nearly three times the age of my Xantia though...

[RichardW]

I'm less than half the age of my motorbike

[CitroJim]

I'm younger than some of my vintage wirelesses though (just)...

I bought a Mullard transistor circuit design handbook at a vintage wireless rally at the weekend. The book is dated 1960, in the days when transistors were still very new. That was a year after I was born!

When I was born they were still just making steam locomotives....

[Stickyfinger]

and hanging people .....ahh the good old days

[CitroJim]

and hanging people .....ahh the good old days

Yes, indeed they were - just!

[myglaren]

Mine has occasional phantom unlocking I think, never totally sure I locked it when I return and it is open.

Isn't that called age ? I have that problem too... (the occasional panicked, "did I lock the house/car ?" after its too late to check...

Rarely lock the car but have been known to wander off and leave the door wide open. Did it this morning

[xantia_v6]

I'm younger than some of my vintage wirelesses though (just)...

I bought a Mullard transistor circuit design handbook at a vintage wireless rally at the weekend. The book is dated 1960, in the days when transistors were still very new.

In my garage in NZ, I have a General Electric (USA) P711 transistor radio made in 1958. Transistors were very expensive then (they are actually in evacuated metal cases e.g. 2N76), and they made the radio work with just 4 of them: a LO, a mixer, an IF amp/af preamp (reflex), and a class A audio amplifier. To keep battery consumption reasonable, the volume control (as well as attenuating the audio) varies the bias on the output amplifier, just keeping in the linear region. here is an advert for it https://books.google.fr/books?id=KD8EAA ... io&f=false (mine never had the optional rechargeable batteries). Despite the implications of that advert, the class A output stage is quite hard on AA cells.