So I have the common door ajar issue with my (new to me) '04 Expedition XLT. I've been using the light dimmer switch to turn off dome and outside mirror lights, but want to resolve the problem because I need light in the instrument panel at night, which means I'm driving with interior lights on and mirror lights going outside. I have done much research into switch CRC/WD40 remedies, switch replacements and wiring issues. However, I have a weird diagnosis result I'm hoping someone here can shed light on and point me in the correct direction.

If I close all doors and let the interior light eventually time out (takes approx. 10 minutes), and then open a door and the light doesn't come back on, that indicates a door that is already indicating as ajar and therefore faulty. No change in door status/sensor when opened results in no change to the interior light. Opening a door that turns on the interior light again indicates a correctly-working door switch/sensor.

My problem is, using this process to diagnose which door is at fault, both driver's side doors indicate as broken, in that neither turn the light back on when opened after it has eventually timed-out. Both passenger side doors activate the interior light as expected.

So my question is, do the doors on the same side share a ground wire that is likely broken and therefore both are not working, or do I have two bad switches? Also, though possibly unrelated, the driver's side rear door's window controls are dead.

Does anyone have a wiring diagram that I could use to trace where wiring on this side goes, to see if it could be a wiring issue. I'd prefer to tear apart the rocker panels/harnesses, or the doors, but not both if possible.

Thanks in advance for the help and advice.

 

Do you have a laptop ? You can use ForScan to analyze your door switches operations and eliminate the guess work. Does your radio turn off immediately when you turn the key to off ?

Download ForScan Free





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Hah! I just ordered a cable for that on Amazon last night and will download and install it when the cable arrives this weekend. I didn't know FORSCan could monitor each door, that's great. That being said, if both switches are dead or if there's a common ground they share busted, wouldn't FORSCan still show both as ajar? Is there a way to narrow this down to differentiate between switches or a ground fault?

Also, no radio. It was stolen (or so the guy said, but now I'm thinking he may have removed for the sale it because it wouldn't turn off because of this issue) but I have a BT one also coming from Amazon.

 

4BE,

Went through a like problem. Does your radio stay on for the ten minutes also? Any sign of water entering the cab of the truck?

If yes to either answer, you may have a corroded wire in the harness that runs on the passenger rocker panel interior or the driver interior panel. In my case, I had corrosion in wire splices on both sides. By fixing the wire splice corrosion issues, I solved by door ajar issues. I have a post about this on this forum. Their are also multiple youtube videos that show the issue and how toy fix.

 

Thanks MikeKerr, as mentioned above, I don't have a radio (yet). No evidence of water intrusion that I can see.

When your wire splices went bad, did that effect one or both doors on that side?

 

4BE, water corroding the splices effected all the doors.

If I read correctly, you only have had the SUV for a few weeks. It only takes a few minutes to inspect the wires. Might be worth the time.

Attached are pictures of the splices I installed (identified by the colored heat shrink). BTW- I thought the issue "could not be" wiring and replaced the front driver and passenger door sensors first, to have the condition not improve. And like you, I purchased my 2004 Navigator with the issue. And in my Navigator's case, it was blocked sunroof drains that caused the water in the cabin. Doesn't take much water. The water sits in the interior water panel where the splices are. The corroded splices are always "hot", and that is why they are impacted as opposed to all the spliced leads in the rocker panel. Those always hot spliced leads are sitting in water, even with the truck off, 24x7 until they finally can't pass current because of corrosion.

One can always pop off the cosmetic water panel covers, remove the black base plate, and look at the two retaining clips. Those clips should be spotless and shinney. Any sign of dullness or corrosion suggest water has made it to the interior rocker panel.

Driver side

Passenger side

 

Thanks Mike, yes I've just had it a week. Mine doesn't have a sunroof but the vehicle has been so abused (mechanically it's great, cosmetically not so much) it wouldn't surprise me if the PO left windows open in the rain. They also had some sort of nasty amp installed, going by hacked brackets screwed into the back of the rear seats, a massive copper cable sticking out between the second row seats, the fuse panel on the passenger side being not bolted down and lose, the missing head unit and holes drilled through bulkheads.

This is very helpful. I think I'll start with the rocker panels as that looks easier and more conclusive than tearing the door apart. I've done door tear-downs on many cars, and really dislike it (especially on VW/Audi doors). Did you take out your seats for this? Looks like a seat mounting point in the second pic.

 

No reason to take out the seats to inspect the wiring harness under the rocker panel. I did remove the seats as I removed the carpet to clean it. Good luck!

 

So I dove into this this evening, expecting to find a bad splice. There was no sign of water intrusion other than corrosion on one of those clips, but no evidence in the loom or channel, but there was a bunch of dust and grass/leaves debris.. From your pics and others I've seen it's the purple wires splice that's the one in question. I tapped into those wires both sides of the splice and had continuity across the splice and both sides read 12v, so I think the splice is good.

So now what? Door switches? Guess I need to order two, one for each door. My cable came in for the FORScan software so I'll try that as well, but I'm guessing it will just show me what I already know, that drivers side doors are always open.

Thoughts?

Corrosion evident on clip

Splice looked good

Sealed up taps with purple nail polish

Tapped into it to test for voltage and continuity

 

That corroded clip means there was sitting water. I have inspected multiple Navigators, every Navigator with a corroded clip had sitting water in the channel. Looking at the pics tells me water in the channel. That wire loom will be spotless unless water came to visit.

There is not only the purple wire, but there is also a red/ white wire. In my Navigator, both were corroded. The red and white wire is on the passenger side.

I will put money on it a corroded purple and or red/white wire is causing these issues.

Look closely at this picture. You will see the red/white wire and where I temporarily spliced it.

 

I'll pull it apart again (it was much easier than I anticipated) and check the red/white wire. It also has a splice?

Also, am I safe to presume that since my passenger side doors register open/close correctly that I don't need to pull the passenger side loom, that the issue is in the driver's side wiring where both door show as "ajar"?

Thanks for all the help.

 

My recommendation is you pull both sides, it really is not that hard. Replace the purple splices and the red/ white splices. Voltage can appear good, but not allow amps to pass at required volume. These splices are the most common point of failure for these vehicles having door ajar/ radio won't turn off/ auto headlamps won't turn on issues.

This is a decent tape to wrap around the harness after the harness sleeve was opened:

 

Well, unfortunately replacing the splices on both sides made no difference, so I tore the doors apart.


And I found this in both doors...




Both door switches had fallen apart. The last pic is of the remaining parts of the switch in the latch mechanism after I removed it from the door.
The connectors also had what looks like lithium grease in them, so someone had been messing around in there, perhaps an earlier attempt to fix them. In any case both switches were shot.


To confound things further, the new door switches I bought, as spec'd for a 2004 Expedition, didn't match. The connector was different, and the style different. Here's what I took out of the doors:


And here's what I installed.


I had to pair down the connector to make it fit the new switches, removing the keyed ridge and rounding off the corners with a sharp blade, but it worked.


Anyway, that was the issue and it ended well with no more door ajar issues, working dome lights and I was able to program two new remote key fobs off eBay (that was a piece of cake).
The crazy and confounding aspect with this one was two doors with the same issue on the same side, which hinted at a harness culprit, but that turned out not to be the case. At least I got to swap out my door switches with new ones at the same time.

Now onto adding a radio...

Thank you all for your help, especially Mike, and I hope this helps someone else later in the same boat.