Alright well my digicam is dead so I can't exactly show you but I'll describe it as best as possible.

Let's start with the driver side:
The actual door handle inside doesn't sit flush against the plastic piece all the way. It's as if something is rusted under the door panel. To best put it: it's as if someone went to open the door, pulled on the lever, and time froze lol. The handle juts out and doesn't fully go back in.

With that being said, the lock is starting to expletive up because of it. I think because the handle is sticking a tad too far out, it's seeing that the door is "open" but not open all the way. When I use the switch or keyless remote, I can hear the lock make the click sound and open but the little switch on the door that flaps back and forth barely moves. Sometimes it does if I'm lucky, sometimes it doesn't.

It unlocks easier if I manually unlock with the key from outside but still have trouble, just not as much. The weird thing is, it'll lock 100% of the time whether I use the remote, key, or inside switch once it unlocks. But it gives me beef when unlocking.

Now the passenger side:
Alright this lock is just weird. The handle is fine. It's perfect. I can unlock it with the key, no problem. But it never unlocks/locks every time I use the keyless remote or driver side switch. It's just random. Sometimes the little lock flap will unlock/lock, sometimes it won't. Otherwise, the whole system functions perfectly (unlike the driver side).

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I've been locked inside of my car a lot of times now cuz I can't get the driver side door to unlock. So I've finally broken the habit of locking the doors when I get in the car and leaving the door unlocked so I can get out lol.

I'm gonna attempt to take the door panel off by myself (for the first time ever) and see if I can see what's wrong. Does anyone have any suggestions (or better yet, pictures) or where/what I should be looking at/for?

Or any solutions as to why they're "dying"?

 

Anyone? Damn this thread dropped down the page fast.

 

First, I would love to commend you on how detailed you were in your post; this makes it a lot easier for us to help you.

Your best bet is to pull the door panel off and actually visually inspect the rods that control the door locks. I don't have any pictures, but there are two rods that run horizontal across the inside of your door. You can physically move them right/left to lock/unlock your door.

Your best bet is to tinker around with those and actually see what's hanging it up.

If this doesn't make sense, I can try to get pictures of the rods I'm talking about by this weekend.

 

So you think I need to grease something up? I just don't understand how rods that move left and right can start to freeze up like it's doing on my driver side door.

Hopefully I won't have to replace the crap cuz I have no money (literally broke).

And thanks for the comment about the details lol.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by amej8 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">So you think I need to grease something up? I just don't understand how rods that move left and right can start to freeze up like it's doing on my driver side door.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Well, something is definitely hanging it up somewhere which is locking you in your car, etc.

 

Thanks for the help/tip .

I'll get in there as soon as I can. Meanwhile, I'll keep bumping this thread (with pics if I take some) for general help and solutions.

 

Well I got around to doing it today. Took off the driver side door panel and had a look around. At first it looked fine but then I noticed....

<u>Driver side:</u>
Right down by where the lock actually is on the side of the door by the door jam, where it locks onto the U shape piece on the car... There's a little "mechanism" (I dunno the right word).

See when you pull the lever on the inside, it pulls the rod which in turn is hooked up to sort "pulley system" except with solid rods. And the bolt that allows that "pulley system" to work is rusted beyond belief...wow. I WD-40'd it and it free'd it up somewhat. I then loosened the 3 bolts holding the lever/lock switch and moved it farther away from the end of the door so the lever would have more room to sit closer to the door.

<u>Passenger side:</u>
The little bolt under the lever was stuck on there good so I didn't get a chance to look at the whole assembly. But I managed to pull away some of the door panel so I could look down in between the door and saw that the rusted bolt on the driver side is perfectly fine on the passenger side.

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Thanks to JDM-EJ1 and another person from ClubCivic for helpin me .

It works MUCH better now with WD-40 sprayed all over it. I sprayed an ***-load lol. Getting the driver side door panel was a BITCH! Took me like 15/20 minutes but I finally learned the trick to it and got it.

Thanks again guys!