This phenomenon is called RFI (radio frequency interference), and it's
a bugaboo that plagues automakers in general.  They test and test and
test for it in product development since this sort of interference has
been known to cause all sorts of problems, some silly like your door
locks, some serious, like the car stopping dead in traffic.

Likely as not, there's some RF shielding that has gone missing or has
become relocated where the circuitry that controls the door locks
(think body controller!) is.  The signal that the cellphone puts out
is "bleeding" over in this circuitry, commanding the doors to lock and
unlock.

Is it a problem with the car?? Well...yeah, but it might be a hard one
to isolate and fix.  I'd look where the body controller is mounted and
make sure everything seems to be present and correctly assembled.  I
believe the body controller is located behind the panel at the end of
the dash on the driver's side.

What I will say is that it's not common, I've never heard of a "Dodge
thing of locking themselves".  Has the interior of the car ever been
disassembled, perhaps for wiring work for a stereo, or A/C work, or
collision repair?

--Geoff

On 8/3/05, N.McV. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I have a 98 (2.7, not an ES, if that matters for this question) with 90,000 
> miles on it.
> 
> The doors have always done that Dodge thing of locking themselves at 
> inconvenient times. Now they've developed a new game of locking and 
> unlocking, sometimes rapidly, while the car is moving.  That's annoying 
> enough...
> 
> A few nights ago my husband heard the locks clicking whike the car was 
> sitting in the driveway, hours after being parked.  I tried everything I 
> could think of to stop it (thinking it might go all night and run down the 
> battery), to no avail, and was trying to get at the door-lock fuses to pull 
> them, when hubby had an idea. He reached into his car (parked next to mine) 
> and turned off his cell phone. The locks quieted down.
> 
> Anybody else familiar with this behavior? It this common, or is my Trep 
> haunted? Or developing sentience?
> 
> 
> Nan McV
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ---------------------------------
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-- 
--Geoff
MML Moderator/Admin/Occasional SAA
'92 Acclaim; '98 Intrepid; '03 Grand Caravan
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