1998 Ford Taurus Automatic Door Locks Problem

by Jim Bullock
(Richmond, VA, USA)

1998 Ford Taurus Automatic Door Locks and Dome Light Problem. My '98 Taurus developed a problem several years ago in the automatic door locks. When you put the car in drive and release the brake, the doors lock and the dome light and kick panel lights go out. At least, that is the way it is suppose to work.

At first I noticed that whenever the humidity was high, I could hear a click in the driver side front door but the lock did not go down and the interior lights remained on.

I "googled" the problem after fighting it for several months, and found that this is a common problem with '98 Tauruses. Someone on the internet said to shoot WD-40 into each door lock. I said to myself, "yeah right, how can they help anything? I went against my own reasoning and squirted each door lock with some penetrating oil. It wasn't WD-40 but the same kind of stuff.

Sure enough, the doors locked and the interior lights went out just like nothing was every wrong. I have been tinkering on Fords for almost 40 years and I have never found an easier fix to an intermittent problem.