Hi Everyone: A friend of mine who is a body man is working on a 2003 360 Modena that is in his shop (I posted about this car before). It is a sad car because it had been modified (butchered) in FL and now the new owner is trying to save it. So here is one that seems illogical to me...but I told him that I would ask. The new owner let the battery go totally flat. And since then...the driver's side door does not latch. According to my friend, the owner said the electric door locks and the mechanical latching mechanism had always worked fine. And the car was parked and the battery went totally dead and was replaced. And since then, the door does not latch or stay closed. He actually had to drive the car to my friend's shop while holding the door closed. If you try to manually latch the mechanism, it will move into the latched position but will not stay there. As soon as you let go, it pops into the open position. Is this possible? I do not see how a dead battery...or any resulting trouble codes...could make a mechanical lock mechanism not work anymore. Unless there is some weird Ferrari magic going on. Thoughts? Brian
Brian - please check the Window Control ECU and the door relay. It sits under the steering footwell, to the top left closer to the back of the fender area. Are you able to manually lock the door with the key? I see that you are from NH. I live in Worcester, send me a PM if you wanna chat over the phone. James
The cable that goes from the door release handle to the latch mechanism seizes up with age and keeps the latch from staying latched. Take the latch mechanism out of the door and check the release cables. The cable from the outer handle is usually the culprit. I think that is is just a coincidence that it failed when the battery went flat. The lock motors on the latch mechanism are either locked or unlocked, but have nothing to do with the mechanism not latching.
Same issue just happened to me on my 430,it was a seized cable from outside grabe handle to the latch which damaged the latch,not allowing the door to close,very common on 360 and 430 which use the same latch I believe.299$ on ricambi complete with cables.
Just want to say thanks to everyone for sharing information and fix. I learned something new today. Thank you! Dan
Same thing happened to me once; door wouldn't stay closed and the latch was jammed. But this was due to cold weather! It was early spring here and temperature dropped close to freezing point. Put the car back in warm garage and one hour later latch started working again.
Hi Everyone. Thank you for the info...FerrariChat truly has the best people out there. James, thank you for the offer to chat. I may take you up on that. But first, I am going to explore the mechanical aspects of it. When I was down at the shop yesterday to pick up my 328Ci and Jimmy (the bodyman) was showing me the car, I noticed that the exterior door handle had a lot of play in it before the cable started to move...almost like the cable was frozen in the drawn (i.e., unlatched) position. So I suspect that there may e a frozen cable as Motab and E55amg9965 suggested. Thanks again everyone.
Brian - I wrote up a procedure for replacing the latching mechanism/cable on my 430. May be of help. Here is the link: http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/360-430-sponsored-yellow-compass-group/545657-installation-latching-mechanism.html
Yes, we keep these in stock: https://www.ricambiamerica.com/68993200-lh-door-lock-cpl-with-cables.html
You can also just replace the outer release cable, which is usually the culprit. The Ferrari part number is 68602600. I recommend removing the entire latch in order to replace the cable, as it is very easy to break the latch if you try to replace the cable with it installed in the door. The latch housing is plastic and when you try to remove the cable from the metal bracket that is attached to the housing it breaks off. I have a brand new 68602600 outer release cable in the original Ferrari bag, $50 plus shipping if you are interested in it.
