Have your door locks stopped working on your Toyota Avalon? Does the key fob no longer unlock the doors? Here is a guide covering the most common door lock issues.

Toyota Avalon Door Lock Failure Guide

Have a power door lock issue on your Toyota Avalon? Get it fixed, here’s how.

In order to properly diagnose a door lock failure, you first need to test it out and determine what exactly is going wrong. Once you have determined what exactly it is, then find the section below that addresses your problem.

Key Fob Doesn’t Unlock Doors, Button On Doors Works

If your key fob doesn’t unlock the doors, but the button on your doors does, you have the easiest problem. In short, your key fob has a dead battery. This is pretty easy to fix:

  1. Grasp both long sides of the key fob. Your fingers shouldn’t be on the back nor covering the front buttons. Squeeze and the key fob’s back should pop off.
  2. Looking at the inside of the key fob, locate the small battery.
  3. Replace the battery and reassemble. This should fix it.
Toyota Avalon Door Lock Failure Guide Key Fob

Your key fob may vary, but they are all essentially the same.

Single Door Doesn’t Lock/Unlock

If a single door doesn’t work with either the key fob or the power lock button on the door, you probably have a bad actuator motor. The actuator motor controls the door lock mechanism. Over time, through use, this motor can go bad. Typically, you will hear a buzzing sound prior to it quitting altogether.

In order to fix this problem, you will need to remove the door panel and locate the actuator motor. The easiest way to find the actuator motor is to match up the new one with an old one. They can sometimes be tough to find and order online, check our Avalon parts here first.

Here is how to remove the door panel:

  1. Find the screws along the door panel and begin removing them.
  2. Next, use the screwdriver to remove the screws holding the door handle in place and pull the handle off of the door. Also, remove the plastic guard that surrounds the handle area by prying it away with the screwdriver tip.
  3. Then, pull firmly on the edges of the door panel. You should hear a snapping sound as the retainer clips let go. Once all the retainer clips are undone, the door panel will lift out.

All Doors/Multiple Doors Fail To Lock/Unlock

If you have multiple doors that fail to lock/unlock with the power door button on the door, then you have a bigger issue. This can either be a bad relay, blown fuse, or a more serious wiring problem. In this case, it would be wise to bring your Avalon to a mechanic. This problem will take time to correctly diagnose and resolve.