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I have a 2008 Ford Focus that has a door ajar light that comes on randomly both while driving and sitting still. I have shut every door including the trunk several times and the door ajar light and interior domes lights come on and sometimes flickers on and off. The car goes through a period where there is no issue then poof it freaks out and starts dinging that a door is open when it is not.
Also sometimes when the car is sitting in the driveway parked the interior dome light will come on for 5 minutes then shutoff for about 15 minutes. I’ve pushed/pulled on every door to try and isolate which door it might be, but to no avail.
I’ve watched Eric’s video on the subject and I would like to add that I do not see an actual door switch on the door or the door jam. I don’t know where the door switches are located to even test them. I also cannot find a wiring diagram for the switches themselves.
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Your are not going to like this, but that jam switch is attached to the latch and is a nightmare to change out without removing the latch first.
See that white connector on the top left? The one surrounded by a circle of foam? Yup that is the door jam switch, if I remember correctly you have to buy a whole new latch to get the switch, I might be wrong on that.
I have heard that soaking the assembly with a quality penetrating oil sometimes can free up a stuck jam switch.
The best way to find out which one is bad is either the dealer or an independent shop that has a really really good scan tool. You can pull up the datastream from the body control module and see which doors are reporting closed and which are reporting open.
The only other way is to unplug all but one and see what happens.
Raistian your door latch picture is the first one I have seen that looks correct to my car. That is going to be a nightmare to get to. I had previously tried to clean out the door locks with brake clean then oiled them with silicon spray. The door latches operate smoothly but the problem still persists.
I think what I am going to do is wait for the car to act up again then drive it down to the Ford Dealer and see if they can connect their scan tool to isolate which door it is. I didn’t realize some of the scan tools could read door data like that.
I’m guessing Ford created the all included door latch module to ease assembly at the factory.
I’ll post back my findings.
Our condolences. If you can’t see the switch, they’ve hidden it in the door or door jamb and it may be hard to get to. You will have to pull the door panel off the door and that can be tricky and traumatic and then you cut up your hands real good on all the sharp sheet metal edges in there. Then the grease and undercoating gets on your hands and into the cuts. Super yucky. Most folks give up and have a real repairman fix it. And it’s no fun for them either so the bill will be quite amazing.
Next time you go to buy a car, verify that it doesn’t have twenty expensive unnecessary gadgets and misdesigns like this one. Fords have been getting a lot better, one hears, but they still have a ways to go to get to the Toyota and Honda levels of reliability and sensible design. And then there are the hard choices, like BMW and VW, where the cars are very attractive at first, but the design foibles and cost of parts and general unreliability may irk you no end in the middle and long run.
If you have to for now pull the dome light or if it
has the off switch turn it off so you don’t chance
draining the battery until you can find the switch
culprit.I had to replace a door actuator on my Subaru the other day which meant the door latch had to come out. Other than a little puzzling on how to remove trim without doing damage the job was accomplished with little drama.
*Update*
I was able to get the car to act up for 4 days in a row and drove it to the local Ford dealer here in town. They were able to plug in their Ford Scan tool and identified that the driver’s door latch/switch was the one sticking. Had to order a new drivers latch/switch assembly and they installed it. So far its been 3 weeks and no more door ajar buzzer noises when driving.
Victory banana:
[quote=”DormanPartFail” post=88491]*Update*
I was able to get the car to act up for 4 days in a row and drove it to the local Ford dealer here in town. They were able to plug in their Ford Scan tool and identified that the driver’s door latch/switch was the one sticking. Had to order a new drivers latch/switch assembly and they installed it. So far its been 3 weeks and no more door ajar buzzer noises when driving.
Victory banana:[/quote]
Good to hear. 🙂
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