Hi All -

Replying to this thread because it was my turn to have door lock problems. Looks like I'm in good company. :-)

A couple of months ago I started noticing problems with the central locking on the front passenger’s side door of my 2005 X5 3.0. At that point, the lock didn’t seem to want to go down to the locked position consistently when locking the doors with the key fob, but it could still be locked and opened manually.

I bought an OEM door lock actuator assembly (ouch! $$) and had made a mental note to just live with it until the weather gets a little cooler. Apparently that was not a great plan, as last week the passenger side door became stuck in the closed position. The door lock knob stayed down, and neither the inner or outer door latch would open the door.

I first tried using the bent rod tip described in the original post of the thread. I was able to find the position of the lock mechanism pretty easily (I could feel the handle being pulled back as I pushed down with the rod, as described in the procedure) but no amount of prodding/pushing with the rod made the door able to be opened with either the inner or outer latch.

The next thing I tried was pulling fuse #20 and #24 as suggested in post #40. No luck there, unfortunately.

In my case, the only thing that worked for me was the approach suggested in posts #41 and #44: taking the door card off with door closed to access the actuator. It wasn't especially easy to do, but it can be done (at least on my 05) if you're slow and careful. Once I had access, I was able to start prying the plastic cover off of the actuator assembly (as suggested way back in post #12). Almost immediately, something gave internally and the door popped open.

So as others have suggested, if your actuator is the problem the bent rod trick probably isn't going to help you. Thanks to all who contributed to this thread - lots of helpful information. The job was still a real PITA, but surely could have been worse.

Best regards,
Chris
Lockhart TX