Keyless entry button on door handle not working

davesA8 · #1 10th October 2013, 01:00 PM

Hi, Recently bought my D3 A8 4.2TDI and noticed that the button on the rear nearside door will not operate the locking the other three are fine, any suggestions as to what the problem is likely to be? a complete door handle? or maybe just a new switch? and how difficult a job to fix? any help much appreciated, regards Dave

PsYcHe · #2 10th October 2013, 01:17 PM

Is the child lock turned on on that door? Not sure if it affects the locking button though.

If not, it's a door-card off job and swap the button for a new one (or replacement from A8parts).

davesA8 · #3 10th October 2013, 01:22 PM

Cheers Psyche, Will check that first,

PsYcHe · #4 10th October 2013, 02:04 PM

Ignore me... For some reason I was thinking of the button on the inside... I'll crawl back into my hole again.

Yes, your button has probably failed, I know that the previous owner of mine had to replace the rear offside one. It's still a doorskin off job I think.

47p2 · #5 12th October 2013, 06:24 AM

Door has to be stripped down, not a job for the DIY'er

Easier to lock the car using the next nearest button

Somerandomguy · #6 12th October 2013, 03:30 PM

Nah, it's a DIY job, i have done both front and rear and this was one of the first jobs when I got mine.

To replace the handles, you need to remove the door cards (buy a few spare clips before hand), remove the inner mounting plate, disconnect the wiring and door lock lnkage (this is the trickiest part) and loosen the retaining frame to extract the handle from the exterior. there is a post of mine on vwaudiforum with a couple of PDFs from ETKA. http://www.vwaudiforum.co.uk/forum/s...471#post789471

The hardest part was getting replacement handles, which I ended up buying from German ebay for a total of €110 for a set of all 4 in the correct colour. The search term I used was before the loss of the wildcard search: A8 Türgriff* (don't forget the umlaut on the u), and then just trawled through the search results looking for the tell-tale button.

I guess it took me about 2 hours per handle, and i think i only used a couple of different tools, a 10mm deep socket, a pry tool for the door card and some torx drivers (t30 or 27 and t15 i think)

davesA8 · #7 19th October 2013, 07:54 PM

Cheers, Thanks for the good info bought my new handle and with your help will give it a go! cheers Dave

onetwentie · #8 28th May 2014, 09:34 PM

Dave

did you manage to do this?

I think mine has gone on the driver's side.. the button seems to have lost it's "flex" so when you touch it, it has nothing to press? if that makes sense..

interested to know where you got the handle from and how much? was it the whole handle? can you not just buy and replace the button in the middle?

Radman · #9 17th December 2014, 10:36 AM

I had this problem with the drivers door on my 2006 D3 when I bought it. The nearside rear passenger door went next so with nothing to lose I gave it a good squirt with WD40 and it works! I gave the long dead drivers door the same treatment and normal service has been resumed. Don't bother taking it all apart until you have tried this.

Jem

snapdragon · #10 17th December 2014, 05:25 PM

Two of mine started getting water behind and would make a squishy sound when pressed. One of them didn't work most of the time. This would also freeze hard under the silicone button when below freezing. One day I used a silicone spray with a straw on and jetted it into the gap while jabbing the button and then wiped off the excess. It started to work again, but recently started getting water behind so will do again.