A few days ago, my drivers outside door handle stopped opening the door. It felt as if it just wasn't connected to anything at all, and before this I never felt anything snap, so I thought something just came loose. Then later in the day I rolled down the window and about half way, it started making noise and jammed. Now the inside handle won't budge. It feels like something is lodged in its way preventing from moving. So now I have to get in and out of my car via the passenger side door. Is there anyway I can get the door open so I can remove the inside panel to see what the hell is going on?

 

Yikes, that does not sound good haha...you might have to cut a hole in the door on the outside to open it. Unless someone can give you a better idea...

 

Wow, that does not sound at all like something I want to do to my poor car. Although my car might deserve it for making me get in and out of the damn passenger side for the last few days....

I might have to resort to taking it to the damn stealership to see if they have a solution.

 

Take the inner door panel off and look inside the door. You should be able to see the outside handle rod laying on the window track. Re-connect it to the handle at the door, hopefully you did not bend it too much with the window.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by axlline &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Take the inner door panel off and look inside the door. You should be able to see the outside handle rod laying on the window track. Re-connect it to the handle at the door, hopefully you did not bend it too much with the window.</TD></TR></TABLE>

if you would have read, he said he cant open the door, so how is he going to get the panel off to look inside?

Anyways, Do you have anything like a slim jim or something that you can stick into the door near the lock area and see if you can "knock" what ever might be stuck out of the way so you can atleast roll down the window? Maybe you will be lucky and it will allow you to open the door as well

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by axlline &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Take the inner door panel off and look inside the door. You should be able to see the outside handle rod laying on the window track. Re-connect it to the handle at the door, hopefully you did not bend it too much with the window.</TD></TR></TABLE>

How can he get the inner panel off when the door will not open ????

The only thing I can think of is to insert a slim jim between the door glass and door rubber, that's one of those thin steel strips that gets you into a car when you've locked yourself out. Then try and lift the door connecting rod out of the way of the window, sounds like your window may have trapped the rod ? Make sure your door glass is fully up so it's not trapping the connecting rod. You may have a slim chance it's better than the dealers if you can get it.

****GREAT MINDS**** posted at same time as the above post LOL

 

You can't take off the whole panel without the door being open, but you can take out the window switch bezel, power mirror switch, and little tray out of the arm rest. Between those three you should be able to fsh around in there and hopefully jimmy it open. Then you can take the whole panel off and fix it right.


EDIT: I was assuming you had a 4th gen. I'm sure 5th gen is similar??

 

your best bet is to get hold of a Door Lock Out Kit.

These can be bought through Snap-On or the likes of etool.com

The same happened to my mate, we resprayed his car and the door handle rod managed to pop out. Took us about an hour to get the door open using some wedges and a selection of slim jims from the Lock Out kit.

 

I did not say it would be pretty. It will mess up the inner door panel, and it is possible to take it out with the door closed. I know because this happened to my lude. It messes up the panel enough to want a new one, but I got the door open.