1999 Dodge Stratus Door locks and chime

270,000 MILES • 4 CYL • FWD • AUTOMATIC
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CHOMP1974
  • MEMBER
  • 2 POSTS
When driving noticed that door locks actuate and chime occurs for no reason, some times it indicates that the door is ajar and other times it doesn't. Will go through a period of five minutes when this happens and then it won;t happen for a while???? Sometimes when coming to a stop the chime will go off and then about 5 seconds later the door lock will actuate, but the door ajar does not indicate-----Would you have any ideas, and can I just disable this buy pullling a fuse????
Jun 11, 2009 at 6:36 AM
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CARADIODOC
  • ✓Experienced Mechanic
  • 34,397 POSTS
Don't get carried away with trying to bypass stuff; just fix the door switches. Here's a copy / paste version of a previous reply.

They are located on the rear of the door opening, just below the gold-colored door latch striker. They are self adjusting. If you look closely at the push button, you will see a slightly rounded thin button and a tiny slot right under it at the end of the switch. Use a thin pick in that hole to pull the button out. It actually looks like a fat plastic nail, about an inch long. That nail slides into the switch body when it bottoms out when closing the door. That's the self-adjusting feature. To prevent this from happening again, I placed three washers under the head of the nail to act as spacers. M5 metric lock washers are the perfect size with the correct size hole. Three of them stacked up works great, and for a "professional" touch, I used black touch-up paint so the silver washers didn't stand out. When you started, the "nail head" was pushed all the way into the switch body. That's as far as it can go. With the three washers, the nail head will be sticking out about 1/4".

This fix will prevent the switches from over-adjusting again. Check every switch for each door. Instead of washers, you can also use small diameter wire wrapped around enough times to build up about 1/8" under the "nail" head.

caradiodoc
Jun 11, 2009 at 3:57 PM
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CHOMP1974
  • MEMBER
  • 2 POSTS
I actually found which door was causing my problems, I removed the adjuster and found the brass coloured connector broken. I just unplugged the adjuster and now no problems. I will get a replacement part from the dealer and replace it.

Thanks alot for the info.
Jun 12, 2009 at 1:12 PM
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