I am posting this on behalf of a member of my Mach1 forum. I thought there may be some help available for him here.
Hello M1R. This doesn't have anything to do with a mach 1, but thought I'd ask here since you guys are normally a big help.
So, my wife has a 94 bmw 325i. Her door wouldn't close and we found out it was the door latch assembly. Only thing is there are 3 different options, one with no micro switches, with 1 micro switch pigtail, or with 2 micro switch pigtails. I know someone that has a shop that does exhaust and maintenance work on cars, but isn't a full service mechanic shop. Well he did an oil change on the bmw and said he would ask his german shop neighbor which door latch assembly it had. So he disassembled the door, took off the part and took it over to the german car shop and came back with a used door latch assembly (they sell used and rebuilt parts) No other place had the door latch assembly except the dealer for over $400 (I called every place within 25 miles from me). A couple online websites had them, but didn't show which of the 3 options their particular one was. I got the used one for $65. He put it in and the door was able to close again, only thing is when we would put the key in the door to unlock it, not all the doors would unlock, like normal and the driver door would unlock half way. So we could open the door if the key was turned to the unlock position. I figured that's fine as long as the door can close now. A couple days later the door stopped being able to lock and unlock and the next day after finding that out the car wouldn't start. It cranks and seems like it wants to start but won't. I tried jump starting it, but that doesn't even work. It started once during a jump for only like a second and it turned back off. I noticed a humming sound coming from the dash and played with the exterior lock again and the humming went away. It seems that when we try to lock or unlock the car it starts humming. I am no mechanic, but I'm thinking that we got the wrong latch assembly and somehow it is draining the battery? Is that even possible? The german shop gave us the assembly with 1 micro switch pigtail. Maybe we needed one of the other 2? I'm lost and need help. Any ideas?