right rear door latches but doesn't lock
 

I spent half the afternoon trying to smoke test my X5, with little luck because I was using the vinyl/rubber glove trick to seal off the intake, and they'd either develop a hole, or the clamp would slip off...the Autoline Pro "shop Series" tester worked fine, and one time It ran for 10+ minutes before a hole appeared in the glove. During that time, I detected no leaks anywhere, though this was just a test of the machine, and I didn't take off any covers. I'm buying a bladder to fill the intake, etc. before the actual test.

When I was putting away my tools and getting ready to go inside, I locked the truck using the center button on the fob; the clown's nose flashed slowly as usual, and I walked around testing each door, also as usual. The right rear door latches firmly, but won't lock, and in this day and age, that means I can't park it anywhere other than my house, until fixed.

The front doors and trunk have always worked fine, in the 2.5 years I've had the X5, but the rear doors needed to be unlocked using a double-pull of the inside handle. I use the left rear door every once in awhile, to access my battery charger/maintainer in the rear floor (never any passengers), and the right rear door once in a blue moon. I opened it to get an inspection flashlight out of a carry bag behind the passenger's seat, so that's why it was opened today.

The only thing I've differently lately, departing from my pattern, was that I used the central locking system the other day, so the wife could get groceries out of the trunk. Otherwise, the only time I've ever used the "cls" was to open the gas door (which is every 4-6 months). What went wrong? both rear doors hav the "child locks" in the up position, if that means anything (but then, shouldn't both doors be acting the same?).

I'd be happy to have both rear doors locked from the outside permanently, and use the inside handle double-pull if I needed back there ( and, for a long time, I've been considering laying the second seat flat, and just using the space for tools & groceries, and using the trunk door).

Any ideas? my searches aren't working on the forum, or on Google, and I see nothing in the owner's manual concerning this. I'll search in my downloaded "B" workshop manual, later this evening.

5-minute fix
 

I was putting away a small set of needle-nose pliers, when it suddenly occurred to me that perhaps the manual door-lock button might be stuck. I had one in another car that would appear to be down, but was really up (or vice-versa). I took those pliers out, and dug the button up (it was flush with the door card top), and worked it up & down for a minute or two.

The door locks now; I guess it stuck in an intermediate position, so it needed some excercise. Thanks anyhow!

If the lock motor won't pull down some times then you may be in for a door lock actuator rebuild.

say it ain't so, Joe
 

Exactly what I fear. The day my next door neighbor and I decided on getting the X5 to prepare for our car swap, the first thing I said to him was "Watch out for the door handles to fail", as I had read of the legendary door lock failures. Later on, he found out that the previous owner (that my neighbor purchased the X5 from) had already replaced a couple, and two years into the repair/restore phase (3.5 years), my neighbor had to make some repairs on the door lock in the driver's door.

I've had 26 or 27 other cars in my life, and none (yet) had a bad door lock... until now. Don't jinx me.

They give lots of warning. Usually will decide to either not lock or not unlock on rare occasion and multiple attempts will typically work. On the ones that failed for me, it took a few months before I couldn't unlock anymore. Fortunately wasn't the double lock mechanism that failed.

I recently had to replace both actuator and carrier on drivers front door (RHD). It started with the button wouldn’t raise with the remote and the door handle only worked sometimes. Looking back on dismantling I think the now broken carrier may have been impeding the lift of the lock button. I looked at the broken carrier (and it took a job to get it past the actuator to get out) and it had broken in an unusual place. With the internal spring it was forcing half onto the actuator lift rod. I still need to test the old actuator to see if this was the case. Anyways, by this time I had already purchased a new actuator (be it the wrong one first off..lol..made for LHD)