My buddy left his 98 Cherokee at my house while he's out of town for a week. I noticed that his power locks aren't working at all. It's obviously something electrical. The fuse is good. There is no power to them at all. They don't sound like they're trying to function at all. It's like the switch is dead. Is there a common issue with these things that I could look for? He says that they haven't worked for three years now. I figured it would be nice if I could fix it before he gets home. Is there a common area where a wire chaffs or something? He gets home tomorrow so, any quick tips are appreciated!

 

try the master window switch. its the control panel in the drivers door that has all diff window and door controls. this part seems to frequently fail. new they are up to 140. there was this little write up about jumping leads and bypassing a circuit to allow the windows to work again. idk... go JY if nothin else!

 

The windows all work fine. It's the locks that don't work.

 

ooohhhhh... ok.... maybe same thing....?

 

Okay. I did some more troubleshooting. I took the drivers door apart and the plastic kick panel inside the door. All of the wires look great. Nothing looks broken or chaffed. I noticed under the hood that the under hood light was smashed and dangling. I had a Trans Am years ago where I crunched the under hood light and it caused some weird problems with the door locks. So, on a hunch, I took the light out and just jumped the two pins. Then, everything goes nuts. The electric lock motor on the drivers door starts running continuously. It's the motor back by the door latch. It just runs and runs until you pull the fuse or hold the door lock switch over to the unlock position. What the eff? I also noticed that the interior lights on his Jeep and no longer working. Great. Anybody ever seen anything like this before? When the fuse is in, and I move the switch to unlock, it sounds like the rear hatch lock is unlocking. None of the other doors though. When I move it to lock, nothing happens on any of the doors. This is nuts. Any ideas?

 

haha maybe you want to stop tinkering with his xj while he is out of town before you fry some more stuff

 

First I would take a volt meter, and check the drivers door switch for power, while working the switch. If not start tracing the lack of power back to the source.