Strange rear door lock/unlock
 

2005 BMW X5 3.0i sport

Rear driver side door has been acting very strange. Say my kid tries to open it with the locked position, it stays locked even if I press the unlock button and the latch goes up. I can't even open it from the outside. When that happens, the only way to unlock is to turn off the engine then unlock using the key. So I would always have to make sure press the unlock button before my child tries to exit.

Any thoughts on what's going on?

There is a lever on the door jamb of the rear doors that will prevent the door from being opened from the inside. It does not matter the state of door locks, if the lever is set to the child-safe setting then the door will not open from the inside.

Having said that, your issue sounds different.

It's definitely not the child lock setting. Otherwise she wouldn't be able to open from the inside at all times.

But 1st make sure to turn off child-safety setting like JDS have suggested, to help isolate the lock/unlock issue

Possible culprit(s):
* Door Actuator
* Body Module (General Module)
* Keys are out of synch