hey all! hope everybody's year is off to a great start. I'm finally attempting to tackle an infuriating pile of issues with my 'runner. First up is the locks. my fob died a few years ago, new batteries did not revive it. Could be dead, but I tried reprogramming it with the whole key in/out open door, unlock/lock voodoo and i ran into an issue.
my door locks don't work consistently enough to complete the cycles required to reprogram a fob. two years later, and they hardly work at all. If i push any lock button (front driver or passenger) the locks on all four doors behave inconsistently. often one or two random locks don't go all the way up or down, sometimes some of them won't budge at all. At least one of the four door locks will exhibit this problem if i use the lock button more than once or twice at any given time, but often it happens the first time i try to lock or unlock the vehicle (like in the morning). Since i've been using the key to enter the car, even that won't trip the lock all the way, and i'll set off the alarm when i pull the door handle.
As you can imagine, this is frustrating and I won't stand for it any longer. Ive had my car raided at least three times (that i know of) since the locks stopped performing properly. The problem is that i can't afford to pile tons of cash into this truck, especially to have a dealer shotgun expensive parts at it. I'm not much of a mechanic, but i know my way around the dangerous end of a screwdriver. Can anybody point me in the right direction to tech the door lock issue? As far as i can tell, it's either the actuators ($160 each), the relay box in the rear door($460) that gets wet, or the "magical failing fuse box" under the dash on the driver side. I can't afford to replace these parts needlessly. Any way to pin it down without spending $1000?
Thanks in advance, I appreciate any advice.

 

So, I've found a potential fix. From what I've read, the locks not cycling completely is an indicator of a bad motor in the actuator mechanism. Those actuators are from $100-$160 each, from aftermarket suppliers and OEM.

Turns out you can buy the motors on ebay, but I don't know which ones to buy without tearing out an actuator and ripping it open. Does anybody here know what motors would work in a 2000 runner?

Right now I'm looking at:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/10mm-Flat-Shaft-FC-280PC-22125-Door-Lock-Motor-Fix-Repair-Actuator-Toyota-Lexus-/111519810843?pt=Motors_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories&hash=item19f719451b