How do you disable the auto door locking on a Toyota hiace 3.0 turbo van?

Answer 1

If you are referring to the "handy-when-it-works" feature that automatically closes the door the rest of the way when you don't quite slide it hard enough to shut properly the first time and is part of the auto-locking process.....

There is a bank of ~3 contact points on the forward door post and complementary contacts on the sliding door - they contact when door is almost closed. Depending on whether all or some contacts are made, the 'controller'/relay/whatever knows to energize the motor that closes the door the rest of the way, and which completes the contact on all 3 points, and stops the motor. Mine went on the blink and wouldn't stop trying to lock/shut the door. Sometimes passengers would get locked in! (Hooray for the enormous 3'x4' sunfroof!) A quick fix is to put a small piece of duck tape over the contacts (I think it only needs to be the middle one, but if that doesn't work try all of them and see if that does it). However, I was replacing a the door handle months later, and while I had the inner door panel off, I noticed that there were 2 wires whose plastic connectors looked like they wanted to be together... and voila! Fixed for good. I hope that helps!