Now I know these cars are full of electrical conundrums but this is a bit weird.

I was sitting having a nice relaxing cup of tea on the patio, P38 parked up about 20 foot away then I heard a strange double clicking noise, like two clicks one after the other. A short while later this happened again and then repeated every few minutes. On investigating, this noise which sounded like the central locking engaging or disengaging was coming from the car. I believe I can see a slight movement in the door buttons but it isn't locking and unlocking as I would've thought. I locked the car with the fob and that seemed to stop it.

Even stranger later , I started the car up and this occasional clicking continued with the engine running! How very strange. I had to go somewhere later this afternoon and the car behaved itself and this clicking didn't occur while driving.

Any ideas?

Door latch microswitches becoming intermittent in one of the front doors.

Quite often the RHF, but could be either of the fronts as they both have a central locking switch in them

The first time I had a failing microswitch it would only do it when it was hot weather. Probably something to do with thermal expansion and there's been quite a bit of heat about over the last couple of days.

Thanks for that guys.

Is it just a matter of sourcing a new microswitch and replacing it? I assume it is not repairable.

Are the microswitchs the same for both left and right hand doors?

There's 3 microswitches as a block but with locating pins that don't match the normal microswitch mounting holes so not easy to replace. Marty has sussed it and does refurbed latches with new Cherry microswitches. I've done it once but it's a real PITA.

Just an update.

I haven’t done anything to fix the problem but as the hot weather disappeared, so did the problem! Result.

I will readdress the problem in winter :)

Or just wait for next summer, if is a cold-ish one you might not need to bother at all! :-)

He will, it'll get worse......

Thanks for that!

What happens is the plastic plungers on the microswitches start to wear so there's less travel on them. When it's hot and things expand slightly, then the gap opens up but once they wear a bit more then they'll do it no matter what the temperature.