My Cobalt is Possessed!

Maintenance/Repairs
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1

This just started this afternoon. I was leaving the store to come home, and as I cranked the car and shifted into reverse the power locks went down… then up… then down… then up… then up again… then up again… etc. So I pulled into the parking space and turned it off and then on again, hoping it was just some intermittent issue. No such luck.

Since I was just two miles from home I figured I’d suck it up until I got to the house. About halfway home my car decided it wanted to shift into neutral gear (it was making the same noise you’d get if you manually shifted the car into neutral)… then back into drive… then into neutral… then into drive…it was doing it with the same rhythm as the door locks.

Then the dinging started. As in, a “your door is ajar” ding rather than a “there’s a loose bit of metal” ding. It would ding but then stop in mid-ding, kind of like a “DINstop DING DING DING DINstop”. At about this time I started hearing a clicking noise coming from somewhere under my dashboard.

Thankfully I was almost home, otherwise I’d have had to pull into a parking lot and call my family to come get me.

Any ideas on this? I did some googling, and although I found several people who had similar problems, I didn’t really find any answers.

2

What year, what model (LS, LT or other), how many miles? Also, I assume it is an auto transmission, but we need confirmation.

3

2006 LT, just shy of 79k miles. And yes, it is automatic.

4

Sounds like a bad door switch to me. Anything like a seat-belt etc preventing the door from closing properly?

5

The door seems to be closing just fine.

6

If your vehicle has a body control module the trouble may be with it. If it was just the door locks doing that I would say check the door lock switches but that isn’t the only issue here. If there is a BCM module I wouldn’t replace it until the trouble was proven to be with it.

7

It might also be oxidation in the connections to the BCM. Read this to locate the box:

http://www.fixya.com/cars/t4243355-body_control_module_located

You can use connector cleaner or a mile abrasive pad to clean the contacts.