[yay]

Hi everyone!

I have a Mazda3 2011, sometimes when locking the car with the key fob, the car makes a strange short squeeking sound. It's hard to describe the sound, it almost sounds like you'd turned on the motors for the washer fluid for half a second, although it's likely not that

The sounds appears from time to time, the doors remain locked so it doesn't seem to be a warning that something's open. The lights also flash as regular and you can hear the doors lock. The reason I'm wondering is that I heard the sound the last time I locked the doors about three-four days ago (haven't been driving anything over Christmas) and now the car battery is dead. So I just wanted to check if someone's noticed the same thing and if it could be related to the battery now being drained.

Charged the battery a few hours so everything seems OK now btw. Thanks in advance!

 

[okacookie]

Does it come from one door in particular? I have had a sound in both drivers side door since day one and I believe it's just the actuator making noise. It happened in my old Bronco, but I haven't done anything to actually diagnose this on my mazda.

 

[curvyroads28]

I have experienced this in other cars as well as my current 3. It is the actuator. I never bothered to diagnose what exactly was causing the noise from the actuator, and the first car I had that made the noise made me think maybe the actuator was going out, but it never seemed to show any signs of quitting. It would just always make the noise. I have heard it once or twice on my 3. If the door lock solenoid is a linear actuator, I really don't know what would cause a noise like that other than maybe some magnetic vibration somewhere. Anybody on this forum know anything about linear motors and actuators? I don't believe it is a sign of anything being wrong, maybe just an unfortunate design flaw?