Originally Posted by Dwight Frye

Were you following the threads about the issue and/or aware that there was a possibility of this part failing ?
It seems that a contributing factor is the number of cycles that the lock mechanism has gone through which certainly makes sense. The older the car, the higher the chance of failure. If you were aware that it might fail and you didn't perform one of the preemptive fixes like removing the fuse or spending $50 for the bypass harness you could have saved $1200 and the aggravation.
If you were completely unaware of the problem until it happened, you have our condolences.