My passenger door won't open, please help.

[saladine1]

The rear passenger door on my VH won't open up. The exterior door handle is very loose and so is the internal one. It seems like the latches inside the door have come apart or something.
How can I fix this?
It's pretty difficult to try and take off the door trim when the door is shut.
Any advice?

[vkberlina]

I had this problem once, take the weather strip on the top of the door skin & work through there, I used a spare door as a guide on where to push & pull andmanaged to pop it open.
It depends on whats actually gone wrong, if its still locked or unlocked, if the latch is broken or if the actuating arms have come off the latch.

cheers
Scott

[Darren_L]

a big hammer ??
yeah it's a difficult one for sure (without risking damage to the door trim) I've been in that position myself.
I ended up doing what Scott said, fortunately in my case it was a front door which is easier to get into from the outside. Rear door has the quarter glass which is going to be sitting above the door lock, so I don't know if you will be able to access it from the outside.....

[ari666]

im not sure if this will help, but hopefully itll give you a clue as to where to stick your coat hanger wire to activate the latch. hopefully, the connecting rod has bent/broken, and if so all you need to do is hook onto the lever just under the handle.

i could be wrong because i am not looking at the actual door trim, but if you undo the armrest and take the surround off the inside door handle, you might be able to prize open the trim just enough to feed a coat hanger in.

so you would bend the hanger into the exact shape you would need to reach roughly where the latch is by holding it next to the door, then feed it in and pray to whatever deity you beleive in (i like the god of cars myself) that you luck it and hook the bit you want.

man, itll be really hard, and probably wont work, and make you swear blue bloody murder for a few hours, but i cant think of a way to do it without putting a dirty big hole in the trim, or ripping a section off the top.

[vkberlina]

I have a inspection camera for work for looking inside walls, jaycar sell a cheap one might be worth your while buying one and using it so you can see inside your door while working on it.

scott

[saladine1]

Thanks for the advice much appreciated.

[Drewie]

If you remove the back seat can you then get the door trim off, might give you more room to work, just a thought.