98 winstar door ajar

[Bildo]

I have a 98 Winstar and the door ajar light stays on all the time. It used to only be an intermittent problem. I also have a problem with my interior lights staying on. I have to remove the 15 amp fuse in slot #29 when I park the car so the battery doesn't die. The lights also stay on after the car is started and shuts of at around 18 mph. In addition to these my rear wiper works only when it’s in the mood. Anyone have any suggestions?

[swick]

I have a 97 Windstar. I've been having problems with the door ajar indicator coming on and the dome light staying on all night. I narrowed the problem down to the rear hatch sensors mis-reporting the door ajar. For some ungodly reason the Dome light will stay on indefinietly - draining your battery - unless you yank the fuse. The door sensors are connected to the door locking mechanisms. The sliding door and the rear hatch each have two mechanisms / sensors. I had to remove the panel from the rear hatch by carefully pulling it away from the door. It is held in place by plastic push plugs. The can be pretty tough though - so be careful or you'll crack the panel. Once off you can access the sensors at either side of the door at the lock mechanism. Its hard to see but there is a little tab you need to pull up on in order to pull these off. I removed both sensors. No more problems with the dome light or door ajar indicator. Removing just these two sensor connections and your power locks / rear defrost will still work. If you don't care about those - there is a main connector on the drivers side of the rear door behind the panel near where the top and bottom panels meet. It's easier to get to and won't require taking the whole panel off. But like I said - you'll lose power locks / defogger / wipers. I just finished doing this myself. It took about 20 minutes. Most of that was just getting the panel off and then taking all those plastic tabs off the door and putting them onto the panel before putting the panel back on (it makes it much easier to put it back on - took about 30-seconds)

[2tru]

Another thread suggested spraying the sensors with WD-40. Apparently the problem is almost always with the rear hatch...as was mine. I tried the fix, and it saved me paying $60 at a local garage to have the rear sensors replaced.

[Bildo]

I loaded the door catches with WD40 and it worked. Thank you.

[bbaker]

After being driven crazy for the past 3 or 4 weeks, I turned to Automotive Forums and had my problem with the Door Ajar Alarm fixed in under 5 minutes.

Opened one door at a time with vehicle running to determine which of the 4 doors did not sound alarm. In my case, and it seems the most common, it was the rear hatch. Soaked both locking mechanisms with BD EAS OFF (Mechanic says it is better than WD-40) and the problem was immediately cured.

Am I a happy guy now.

[PumpItUp]

Same problem in the recent past as yourself and went to Ford and they did exactly that.. Soaked the back hatch side latches with WD-40.. next will be Duct tape for the rear hatch molding that hangs down in mine!..grr.. Also, may want to try to use a rubber hockey puck and literally scrub at the flat plate contacts between the sliding side door and the passenger pillar to get rid of residue buildup.
Re your back wiper blade/motor.. I went to a local wrecker and picked up a new/used wiper ($10.00) motor after carefully taking off the interior plastic molding and replacing the motor . I fixed the slow and (sometimes not at all operation) of the wiper on the hatch window.. Ford was $328.00 w/tax ,to replace.. Took me all of 1 hour complete plus picking up the part! Makes you say..hmmm!!

[tasteph]

WD-40 worked just fine for me too.

[Homebrew_ny]

And we have another winner! WD-40 worked on my wife's van as well. This happened a year ago and still havn't a problem since.

[Vchat20]

dont forget that it could be both the driver side door and the sliding door. sliding door isnt hard to fix. but the drivers door is a pain from what i can remember reading. because ours had the same problem and first thing we did was disconnect the sensors in the rear hatch. it worked for a while, but the problem is back again.

but for the most part, the back hatch is the common culprit.

[JLoftus]

Originally Posted by Vchat20

dont forget that it could be both the driver side door and the sliding door. sliding door isnt hard to fix. but the drivers door is a pain from what i can remember reading. because ours had the same problem and first thing we did was disconnect the sensors in the rear hatch. it worked for a while, but the problem is back again.

but for the most part, the back hatch is the common culprit.

I have this problem with my wife's Windtstar and it is definately the power side door.
What should I do to clear the trouble? Is it the contacts?

[Vchat20]

Actually in our case the final culprit was the driver's door. Our usual garage had taken out all the wires for the door ajar sensors in the drivers door during the last tuneup we had and it hasnt been bugging us since. and this has been well over a couple months time. Only downside is the door is never seen as open so stuff like the dome light doesnt turn on when the driver's door is open (bad during early morning), but I think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages in this case.

[gdog9]

I have a 1998 Windstar with the same problem. Other threads have instructed on how to narrow down which door is causing the problem by simply starting the vehicle and then opening each door- drivers door you will hear a continous ding, anyother door you should here one ding. The doors that do not ding have an open sensor. My problem was the sliding door - I tried to clean with alcohol, brass and chrome cleaner - finally I used a SOS pad with alcohol - The damn light turned off while I was cleaning the contacts. I then removed the steel wool and it came back on. It still wants to stay on but I determined that the 3rd contact down was my problem so I duct taped a piece of steel wool over the contact and problem solved. Who needs a dealership. Also I only run into this problem when I wash my van - In a week this problem is usually gone.

[linda3969]

well i have to say this has saved me a whole bunch of money