Help! Front Passenger door not opening!

[Moel]

As Per the title really, car was working fine until Saturday morning..occasionally over the last year or so on a handful of occasions had the passenger door failed to open. But a double press on the fob and we were all ok again.

Friday it was fine, on Saturday morning however things did not go to plan.

 

Went to open the car, and nothing on the passenger door unlocked and relocked the car with the fob multiple times, but still no good. I've managed to remove the interior door card, and get to the actuator but of course the whole thing is one effing sealed unit isn't it, and without being able to open the door I can't remove the bolts inside the door to remove the actuator.

 

So, whats the answer? Take a chisel to the sodding thing? I can't believe that there isn't an answer to manually open it from outside the actuator casing? Does anyone have any ideas what I can do?

 

Alex

[moeluk]

I will take that as a no idea then 😞 I’ve taken the option of buying a replacement actuator and bracket, will check it works then smash the old one to bits….yay

[Trevor]

May be the only option as done it in the past as long as you have a replacement one to hand

[ec5780]

This happened to us too this week.

 

But with ours it was only for an hour or so. Then it started working again.

 

Stupid question but did you try to lock/unlock it from the inside?

[Moel]

Hey everyone

 

Yep, so EC, my word to the wise is...replace the sodding thing now! It's taken several days to resolve this. There are several options depending on how knackered the actuator is.

 

Option 1: There is a round keyway on the side of the actuator (facing the outer skin of the door) about 1/3 to 1/5'th of the way up from the bottom where the actual bracket/lock is, a pair of grips that have sideways pointing tines, can be used to rotate the cylinder towards the door jamb engaging the mechanism and allowing you to open the door

 

Option 2: smash the entire thing to bits, you ideally need to make a hole behind the metal cover plate, (which you will have removed) which will allow you to flick open the latch internally, this is the option i've had to take as it fast became apparent, the engagement mechanism for the lock, would not move to the  fully engaged position. (the manual cable to actuate the lock moved far too easily)

 

Once thats done, you can open the door and proceed with removing the lock, I'm currently on the removing from the exterior door handle part, but that should be relatively easy with a spanner or trim tool.

 

But please take my tale as a cautionary warning, if you think it's on it's way out, replace it, because i can assure you this has been an entirely unpleasant undertaking!